FAMOUS TUNES SOLD FOR A SONG

New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 729, 3 July 1953, Page 7

FAMOUS TUNES SOLD FOR A SONG

the song-writer, and’ whether it’s sunny or shadowy seems to depend less on his musical ability than on his commercial acumen. A few days ago when Zo Elliott, the American composer of "There’s a Long, Long Trail," arrived in England there was also published the will of his British counterpart, Fred Godfrey. In the 40 years since Zo Elliott wrote his most popular song, it has earned him 70,000 dollars, and still brings in about 1000 ‘dollars a year. The writer who has provided two generations of servicemen with the emotional relief and the sentimental. nostalgia of "Bless "Em All’ and "Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty," left only £202. In these days of radio "plugs" and disc jockeys, songs which are forgotten in a few months make fortunes for lesser composers than Fred Godfrey. The writer of "Who Were You With Last Night?" and "All the Nice Girls Love a Sailor,’ and half a dozen others equally famous had only a gift for writing songs, but no talent for selling them. » cote tat of his abiding tunes were sold he and a rival tossed peared. _who would sell a song to Vesta Victoria, star of the old-time music halls, and he won the toss with "Now I Have to Call Him Father," the two men had only 3d between them. Almost every London music publisher turned down "Who Were You With Last cay a long, long trail for

Night?" They read the first few lines: Who were you with last night, Out in the pale moonlight? It wasn’t your sister, it wasn’t your ma, Ah ah ah ah ah-ah-ah-ah. Then they waved it away, thinking that the composer had lost his inspiration. "Then one day," Fred Godfrey said years later, "Mark Sheridan of the Tivoli asked me if I had any ideas for a good chorus *song. I sat down and played it. Good old Mark put it on at the London Pavilion and it was a success from the start. A tenner I got for it-and glad to get rid of the song, too." . One of the great songs of the First World War, "Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty," was written in four hours, With two friends he was walking past the old Oxford Music Hall in London where there was a show called "Blighty." One of them suddenly said: "What an idea for a song!" Within a. few days all the country seemed to be singing it "IT got-not very much," Fred Godfrey used to say. "But I mustn’t complain; it was the custom then: to sell a song outright for a guinea or two. No one troubled about royalties." So long as English soldiers serve abroad they will sing it, though few now know what "Blighty" really means. The soldiers of the Kipling era brought the word back from India where, in Hindustani, it means "foreign," and thus by association for the Indians it. came to refer to Britain. He was also noted for his Irish songs -‘It Takes an Irish Heart to Sing an Irish Song," "Irish and Proud of It," ----- LE

and "When They Ask You What Your Name Is, Tell ‘Em It’s Malloy." His Irish mother probably approved of these, but his English father a prosperous auctioneer at Swansea, begged him to follow in the business. However. after Fred’s first success as a boy with "Blue eyes, true eyes, sweetest I ever knew," there was no changing his mind. By devoting his whole life to being a backrcom boy for the music halls and for screen and radio stars such as Gracie Fields, he made enough money to send his four daughters to boarding school. One’ of them said when his will was published: "Because my father left only £202 it doesn’t mean he was a poor man. It’s just that he

spent it as soon as he made it." With hundreds of songs to his name. scribbled on the back of old envelopes or composed during bus rides, he worked till three months before his death, at the age of about 70, It was enough for him 'that'some ofthe tunes he had written with nostalgia while in France with the Royal Naval Air Service should have become part of the serviceman’s -_---- —

_heritage-with their unprintable amendments. He knew that feeling, too. As for Zo Elliott, who knows how to call the tune when it comes to selling his songs, he said: "One of the happiest moments of my life was to hear my song ‘British Eighth’ played at the White House just before I left. President Eisenhower was entertaining Monty. and they walked arm-in-arm into the hall ae

the band played:"

J. W.

Goodwin