American Popular Song 1

Today I’m introducing a new recurring feature called “American Popular Song.” This will be about the great composers and lyricists of the 20s – 50s, including the Gershwins, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers, Hoagy Carmichael, Johnny Mercer, and many more. We’ll look at the lyrics as poetry and listen to the music from clips and enjoy some of the best interpreters of the songs. I confess now that a lot of them will be sung by Frank Sinatra, my favorite singer.

The song today is “Moonlight in Vermont” written by John Blackburn and Karl Suessdorf, lyrics and music respectively. Written in 1944, Margaret Whiting introduced it the same year.

Most songs of this era are in 32-bar AABA form, where A is a verse and B is the bridge, which then returns to the verse. Rhyme is a big part of the lyrics too. However, Blackburn noticed after writing the first part of the song that there was no rhyme and decided to complete it that way. What is interesting about each verse is that it is a haiku (a Japanese verse form that has three lines, the first and third with five syllables and the second with seven syllables).

Here are the lyrics followed by the Margaret Whiting recording with the Billy Butterfield orchestra.

Moonlight in Vermont

Pennies in a stream

Falling leaves, a sycamore

Moonlight in Vermont

 

Icy finger waves

Ski trails on a mountainside

Snowlight in Vermont

 

Telegraph cables, they sing down the highway

And travel each bend in the road.

People who meet in this romantic setting

Are so hypnotized by the lovely

 

Evening summer breeze

Warbling of a meadowlark

Moonlight in Vermont