MUSIC AND THE CHANGING FASHIONS

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12609, 20 November 1926, Page 14

MUSIC AND THE CHANGING FASHIONS

To-Day’s Songs But a Reflex of the Times

Some ideas seem to run in cycles (writes a correspondent). At one time there was the “topical" craze; then we had a crop of “place" songs such as “Give My Rrgards to Leicester Square,’* “Let’s all go Down the Strand," ami so on. As coon as they had run their course there appoared the apple trees ond ivy craze with “Just Like the Ivy I'll Cling to You,” and “The Shade of the Old Apple Tree.” ' Then the seaside was all the rage, and wc had “I do like to be Beside the Seaside,” and. the “Seaside Sultan." Songs about little wooden huts and grey homes in the West were the next development, followed by tho “snvnpe" songs about islands and dusky queens. “Alexander’s Ragtime Band" heralded the dawn of the jazz era, and now the pendulum seems to be swinging himj; again, and wo are getting songs with real melodies— jazz songs, it is truo, but rhythmio ones. THE HORRORS OF PEACE. To some extent tho song* of to-dat are a reflex of the times;, they mirror tho restlessness of the poriod ns surely as a thGrinoinetfcr tells tho temperature. When the war hysteria swept the world the boys wanted marohing songs they could make a joke about. Wo have never lost the hqbit. Just as tho soldiers wanted something lively and stirring to make thpm forget the horrors of war, we want something poppy to make ns forget the horrors of peace. Wotild the songs of yesterday—as full nf slop nnd sentiment as is an egg oi meat—do it? I very much doubt it. But such songs ns “I Miss my Swiss" and “Sweet Child" are doing it every day. Why singing is said to be going out of fashion is probably beeauce the fashion of musical evenings has gone out. A visit to tho theatre in mid-Victorian days was an event,, and four nights out of the week the family would forgather in tho drawing-room for what was all

too often an ordeal—a pleasant musical evening. Miss ISSO would play; her admirer would torture liis mutton-chop whiskers in song. But to-day people don't want to moke entertainment themselves; they want it handed out to them. RISING STANDARD. That doesn't mean to say they don't sing. They do, but they sing out ot* sheer gladness of heart, and tho tious rhythm not in the solemn cereipnmnl way of the Victorians. Listen to nn audience humming or singing the chorus of n popular song in the theatre. Listen to the people you hear singing on the beach at the scasido, or the trippers in charabancs. And then say wo arc forgotting tho knack of itl 1 not only think tho songs of to-day are every bit ns good ns those of yesterday, but I also think the standard of song writing is going up. In tho old days songs took longer to get round, to soak in. Dan Lena and Marie Llyod Used to sing tho same song for years. Wo are quibfcer hb>, Ton or fifteen years ago, when I song a song it took just about six months to get going. 600 NEW SONGS. But to-day what happens? As soon as a really good song is published it n» played in every ballroom in the country and broadcasted to death by the radio. Inside a month or so it is stone cold. That may be the fate of '‘Valencia.*' And that is why I have just learned over 500 new songs. If n sons is to live for any time today, therefore, it must bo a good one. Otherwise it will just fade out in a days. That is why I think tho standard is going up, and will continue to go up. Song writers must strive to rise above (he rut if they want to make money; they must write something really worth while. Berlin's waltz, “What'll ‘i Do?" is ns good as anything we have had for years. There s a fortune awaiting the man who can write another as good.