April 24, 2025 • 30 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, "White Christmas" and "God Bless America" are both standards of American popular music, and both were written by an immigrant. An astonishing fact—but more astonishing is that they were written by the same man: Irving Berlin. Here to tell Berlin’s story is bestselling author Laurence Bergreen, who wrote the definitive biography As Thousands Cheer: The Life of Irving Berlin.
Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. He was known
for writing music and lyrics in the American vernacular, uncomplicated,
simple and direct, with his stated aim being to reach
the heart of the average American, whom he saw as
the real soul of the country. Here to tell the
story of Irving Berlin is best selling author Lawrence Bergreen,
(00:33):
who wrote the definitive biography as thousands Cheer the Life
of Irving Berlin, Let's take a listen.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
People had wanted to write some sort of biography for
a long time, and when I began, I thought he
was dead. Most people thought he was dead. Now, as
it turns out, he lives about a quarter of a
mile from where I live now on Beacman Place, in
a same neighborhood, almost in Manhattan. But he'd been a
wreck clues for so long, for decades, he know. It
(01:02):
was like Greta Garbo, I want to be alone. It
was like that. And he was not only a shut in.
He didn't communicate with people, and when he did he
was very, very cranky, and he really only talked to
his doctor and his accountant. And by then his wife
was deceased, and I think his daughter stayed away It's
(01:24):
sad because you know, this was a great songwriter, a
cultural hero, really an example of industriousness. But he suffered
from mental illness, paranoiaus vinility, whatever you want to call it.
I don't know how you would define it. And it
became pronounced when he was about sixty years old, after
(01:46):
the failure of Broadway show Missed Liberty. So it extended
for almost forty years for zero. I mean, it's incredible.
So I was curious what happened to Irving Berlin. How
could this greatest of all American songwriters back in sensus. Apparently,
you know, very charming, sensitive, bright person had become so reclusive. Also,
(02:08):
I started hearing people explained, Oh, yes, didn't you realize
he was an opium addict? Didn't you realize this? In
the absence of information, these rumors crept in. They weren't true.
The truth was both more every day which was his
chronic depression, and there was just false you know, there
(02:29):
were people who were envy as of him or spite.
You know, I was thinking when Paul McCartney at one
point vanished from public view for a while and everybody
thought he was dead, and then it turned out he
was and he was just taking a breather, you know.
It was kind of like that. So I was intrigued
by what had happened and how this person who was
an untrained, self taught musician became as Alexandra wilcint said,
(02:55):
he is American music, So how did that happen? So
that was what I was curious about.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Anything you can do, I can do better. I can
do anything better than you.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Oh you can't.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yes I can.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Oh you can't.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Yes I can.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Oh you can't.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
Yes I can.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Yes I can.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Anything you can be.
Speaker 5 (03:16):
I can be greater sooner or later.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
I'm greater than you.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
No you're not.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Yes i am. No you're not. Yes i am, No
you're not. Yes i am, Yes I am.
Speaker 5 (03:26):
I can chewed up cartridges way a single cartridge.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
I can get a sparrow with the bow and arrow.
Speaker 5 (03:32):
I can live on bread and cheese.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
And only on that.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
I'm soaking a rat.
Speaker 5 (03:37):
Any O you can reach, I can go higher.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
I can sing anything higher than you.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
Oh you can't.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Yes I can.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Oh you can.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Yes I can.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Oh you can, Yes I can't.
Speaker 4 (03:46):
Oh you can. I can.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
There were a lot of documents going back to his
immigration as a child to New York. His father kind
of sad story as a canter in Russia, fleeing the
depression there with his family coming here, unable to find work,
becoming a butcher. You know, the very very difficult lives
of immigrants Jewish, Italian, Irish Polish who were trying to
(04:20):
make their way in the United States. But it was
a tough struggle. It was not a pretty picture, and
there were no obvious paths to success. The one that
Berlin started to take was as a street musician, and
he lived on the street, so he really came from
a very very as now they would now say, disadvantaged background.
(04:41):
So how did he manage to overcome it? A lot
of it was his incredible work ethic. He was absolutely indomitable.
He was also honest. I did not hear stories about
Irving Berlin cheating people, or gambling, or being a womanizer
or or drug addict, or all the other things that
(05:02):
seemed to go along with some of this mythology. He was,
in some ways kind of a solitary genius, although after
a while he became associated with many many celebrities because
of what he did, and the most intriguing part to
me was how did he write his music if he
was not a trained musician and he didn't go to
(05:24):
any music school in Russia. He didn't go to anything
like that here. Not only that he played his pieces
on especially prepared piano. People thought it was unique to
Irving Berlin, but it wasn't. And he played only the
black keys. So part of it was because if he
put his fingers on the keyboard, deal they stuck up,
they were right there. Not only that, but to change keys,
(05:47):
he wasn't able to do that in that very difficult
to learn, especially for somebody like me. Fingering way. It
was a transposing piano. It was an invention that many
self taught or uneducated ten pan alley composers used. So
there was a bar underneath it. You changed it and
the piano changed key, so that simplified things. There are
(06:10):
some video demonstrations in the early fifties on TV where
he showed how he did it.
Speaker 5 (06:16):
Tell me IRV, Yeah, this is the funniest looking thing.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
I thought, this is a piano, donting that it isn't
a piano dot piano. This is the French pianol I
ever own. It's what we call a transposing keyboard on
the outworks. Yeah, well, you see, I only playing.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
That shop in the black, oh the black keeps.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
That's right now, with this movable play some cleeriod.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
He wasn't the only one. People kept saying, you see,
only one who had this special, unique prepared piano. But
that's not true. There are a bunch of others. Because
Berlin wasn't the only unchained songwriter trying to make his way.
There were others. He was part of a group of
you know, these were immigrants from Eastern Europe. They were
(07:07):
preceded by Irish immigrants George m. Cohan and other songwriters
who were more or less following the same path. They
were also fighting intense oppression or discrimination and making their way.
Berlin had both advantages and disadvantages. Eastern European Jews from
his background were considered sort of beyond the pale, and
(07:30):
so that made it difficult. On the other hand, he
really had his finger on the pulse of the city
and through some genius or intuition, the American psyche. Now
how he did that, I don't really know, but keep
in mind he wrote God bless America.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
Ah, bless America, that I love.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Stand beside.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
And guide.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
Through the night with a light from the book, from
the Mountains to the Prey to the olds wide with
thee God Bless, Americal, My Home.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Sweet, and many other songs that Easter Parade, White Christmas.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Ah angreaving love of word.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
Christmas just like the LODs? Are you still all?
Speaker 2 (09:01):
How did he do this? This is magic and I
think part of it was genius and part of it
was strategy. He was aware as a composer that songs
geared to holidays were very popular. They were occasional.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
And you've been listening to Lawrence berg Green tell the
story of Irving Berlin and how he came to America
well to escape religious persecution. Jews had been suffering in
Russia for gromas they were called at the time. And
then well, life wasn't easy for his father here. The
opportunities didn't present themselves readily or easily. But to the
(09:37):
son to Irving, Well, he started on the streets as
a self taught street musician, and from there his talent
and more importantly, his work ethos, his work ethic would prevail.
When we come back more of the remarkable story, the
absolutely American story of Irving Berlin here on our American story,
(10:09):
and we continue with our American stories and the life
of Irving Berlin, as told by best selling author Lawrence Bergreen,
who wrote the definitive biography as thousands cheer the Life
of Irving Berlin. Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Of course, White Christmas, which he wrote in about nineteen
forty two on this piano, has become the best selling song,
the most popular song of all time. You know, it
was originally popularized by Bing Crosby, but then countless times
there was a movie White Christmas, and the way it
(10:48):
took off was phenomenal. And most people think it's a
folk tune that in a way is a compliment, because
Berlin knew how to make songs sound as if they
were already there. They weren't complicated, they weren't tricky. He
seemed to find a tune, her inspiration that was just
there and write it down. Oh actually he didn't write
(11:10):
it down because he could not write music. He had
a musical secretary to it who I got to know
named Helmi Cressa, and I spent a lot of time
talking with Helmy about what was it like to write
with Irving Berlin. So Berlin would tap it out on
his prepared piano, sometimes sing it, and his voice that
(11:32):
you can hear in some songs in some movies, especially
This is the Army.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
I've been a soldier quite a while, and I would
like to state the life is simply wonderful. The army
food is great. I sleep with ninety seven others in
the wooden hut. I love them all, they all love me.
It's very lovely. But oh how I hate to get
up in the mall morning. Oh how I'd love to
(12:01):
remain in bed, for the hardest blow of all is
to hear the bugla call, You've gotta get up, you
gotta get up, you gotta get up this morning. Someday
I'm going to murder the bogler. Someday they're going to
find him dead. I lam putatis revellie and step upon
(12:26):
it heavily and spend the rest of my life in bird.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Let's put it this way. It didn't have much of
a range. It had a great deal of spirit. But
you know, he was not a sophisticated singer with a big,
booming operatic voice, quite the opposite. So you know, it's
just incredible in the face of all these disadvantages. How
did he manage to do this fifteen hundred times? However,
(12:57):
many songs are attributed to him. It's really really extraordinary,
So I mean, help me, told me the story. Berlin
was an insomniac, so he would often call up help
me in the middle of the night and say, help me,
help me. You know, he's very always very excited of
you know, write this down, write this down, and then
he would start singing a song or plunking it out
(13:18):
on his prepared piano, and then Helm who was his
musical secretary, would write it down, you know, and play
it back for him. They went back over and over
and over for hours on end, night after night to
get a song right. It wasn't just you know, one time,
Oh here's a song, write down, got it good. No,
it wasn't like that. They were incredibly painstaking and refining
(13:40):
it and he would have help me repeat it. Does
it sound better this way? Does it sound better that way?
A slight change in the rhythm, a slight change in
something else about it, until he was satisfied with it.
When that stage was done, it was given to somebody
else to orchestrate, because often these songs were played for
a movie or on Broadway shows, you know, with an
(14:02):
orchestra or a quartet or something else. So it was
a multi step process. Also, what was remarkable was, unlike
most songwriters, although there are exceptions, he wrote the words
and the music. There are a few others who did that,
Colporter and some others, but Berlin. It was almost always
words and music by Herving Berlin. This was also remarkable
(14:26):
because keep in mind that English was his second language. Now,
of course, he had a very acute ear for language,
and his choice of words and syllables was just perfect,
the intervals, and it always sounds so natural, unless he
wants to be tricky or play games or something, but
it sounds so natural. He became thought of, or considered,
(14:50):
you know, a quintessentially, despite all his varied roots, as
the quintessentially American songwriter, beginning with his first hit nineteen eleven,
Alexander's Ragtime.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
Band, Come On in Here, Come On in Here.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Alexander's Ragtime Band, Come On in Here, Come On in Here.
It's the best band.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
In the man and they can play a bugle call like.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
You never heard you call, so natural, let's want to
go to law.
Speaker 5 (15:23):
That's just the best band.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
What a oh honey, Lamb, come on along.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Come on alone?
Speaker 2 (15:31):
And again people thought this was a folk tune, but
Irving Brillant wrote it. He was drawing on an American
tradition of an Alexander song, that's a genre mainly among
African American musicians, and he thought that would just make
for a peppy tune. And this one caught on, and
(15:52):
we now think of it as, you know, a highly
representative song from that era. Most people heard these songs
through life music, and recorded music was slow in coming.
Eventually it would spread, of course, on the radio and
television and movies, but at this point it was basically
live music in restaurants and in shows and things like that.
(16:15):
So the performers were very important, and their ability to
send the song, to make that note carry all the
way to the back of the auditorium or the bar
or whatever, you know, above a noisy crowd, was really important.
The best example of that was ethel Merman, who I
had actually seen performed. She was in some of his
(16:36):
later shows. She could practically shattered glance practically, you know,
with her voice. It was so powerful, So you know,
Berlin wanted to hear his lyrics, so he would often
stand in the back of the theater to see if
the voice would carry and if somebody had a beautiful
voice but it was kind of soft, you know, that
didn't work. He also did a lot of reviews as well,
(16:59):
which he enjoyed doing, and he was extremely enterprising. He
has set up his own music publishing company, Irving Berlin Music,
which gave him a great deal of control, and eventually
he built with some partners and owned the music Box
Theater on Broadway. This is now would be called vertical integration.
I've been in shows at the music Box Theater and
(17:21):
it's still there. It's a beautiful theater. Eventually he became
one of the founders of escap to protect music. I mean,
it was a very important thing that he did because
it had been no way to collect royalties at that point,
especially as a recording industry. You know, now it's more
important than ever because it's so many different ways of
doing it. So you know, he really was a pioneer
(17:44):
in so many ways. Of course, it's the songs that
you know, have seeped into our collective consciousness that are
so wonderful, and you wonder, oh, yes, where did that
come from? Give Riy Gards a going away? Irving Berlin,
so many others. Not all of them are equally famous,
but you know many many of them are household words
(18:04):
that people say, oh, I didn't realize. Irving Brilliant wrote that.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
Song if you're blue, you don't know where to go? You,
why don't you go where Harlem's pet at the risk?
And go down Tom on the bezy, am I Brown
from down the levee? All it's ten Aughton on a risk?
Not very Ginary Lou balgo every birdy evening with Hurt Welboa,
(18:35):
Robbie albout come with me? And will the band there
to Boulie and seven bend there last two bits at
the risk.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
And you've been listening to best selling author Lawrence Bergreen
share the story of Irving Berlin his biography as thousands
cheer The Life of Irving Berlin. Well, you can get
it at Amazon or the usual suspects. And we learned
that Berlin's talent was that he knew how to make
songs that sounded like they were already there. And then
(19:07):
on the business side, owning his own publishing, forming as
Gap which would create royalty collections. The business side of
the business was a part of his genius too. When
we come back more of the story of Irving Berlin
here on our American story and we continue with the
(19:39):
story of Irving Berlin and telling that story as best
selling author Lawrence Bergreen, let's pick up where we last
left off.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
He just had an incredible catalog. He also, despite the
fact that he was a generally withdrawn person and at
times kind of cranky, was a wonderful collaborator. And when
he made friends with somebody, whether it was Alexander Wilcomp
the Critic, or Cold Porter or many other singers and performers,
he stayed friends. And he was a great musical partner.
(20:11):
And he just had this phenomenal drive to keep working.
You know, nothing stopped him. During the war, he wrote
a show a review that was meant as a morale
booster called This is the Army. And he had been
in the Army in World War One and he had
written one famous song and he got out of it.
Oh how I hate to get up in the morning,
(20:32):
because he was an insomniac, and he really did hate
to get up in the morning. I mean really anyway,
this was now one more later in World War Two,
he revived that song and wrote a bunch of others
and not only decided to have a really patriotic motivation,
used this show to raise money to donate to the
(20:54):
war effort, but to travel with it. So he put
on a uniform and he traveled with them around the
world performing. It was dangerous. This was you know, they
were on a warship. They were not going on luxury cruise.
And by coincidence, the members of the crew of This
is the Army bonded a lot because it had been
(21:16):
an incredible experience for this patriotic cause. Every five years
they got together here in New York for a reunion.
By coincidence, they were having a reunion when I was
writing the book, So I made a bee line for
the hotel where they were and recorded or wrote down
their reminiscences of what it was like to travel around
(21:38):
the world with Irving Berlin and raising funds to support
the war effort. So why did Berlin do it? He
loved having an audience. It was partly that. Also he
did really feel a sense of patriotism about this country,
which it was just a sense of gratitude that he
was here and that he was safe, that he wasn't
in a country that was over with programs basically race
(22:02):
riots against Jews or others, and that there was some
sort of education, there was some sort of expectation that
one could get along, make money rise above one station
if one worked hard. And of course, if you were
in Russia, and I guess he came from a little
town called Mogolev, it was not that way. It was
a very very grim existence and very hard to advance.
(22:26):
It sounds naive, but this really was, you know, a
land of opportunity compared to other places, especially compared to
Eastern Europe or to Ireland, which is why so many
immigrants came to New York. This is a well known story,
but it's worth reminding people. You know, It's just a
shame that fifteen years later, by the time he got
(22:48):
to the show Mister President, which was an expression of
his patriotism and optimism and all that, and which failed
on Broadway, by then it was a parent that there
had been a tectonic shift in the national sentiment. And suddenly,
after he had been on the cutting edge, the culture
was passing him by what seemed like tried and true,
(23:09):
reliable sentiments were no longer the order of the day,
and he didn't take it well. On the other hand,
by then he was hugely wealthy, very successful, and you know,
didn't actually need to keep grinding out more and more songs.
But you know, it's a shame that he dropped from
public view. As I mentioned, that's I thought almost of
(23:31):
you know, when I wrote this book, what you know,
the subtitle would be whatever happened to Irving Berlin? But
as I think, two things, he changed and also our
culture changed. You know, there are other songwriters from that era,
Rogers and Hammerstein and countless others who underwent the same
kind of difficulties and transformation as Berlin, but he was
(23:54):
a particular extreme example, and because he was a pioneer,
it was you know, as Alexander Wolcott said, I bring
Berlin has no place in American music. He is American music.
And by that he meant that he kind of defined
the boundaries, the spirit, the holidays, the sentiments that seem
(24:16):
so American. There's no more American song than White Christmas,
except perhaps God Bless America, all of which Berlin donated
all the royalties from that monster Gate. But he was
motivated by a sense of gratitude. And you know, he
didn't make a big deal out of self promoting to
do that, but that was his sense. So you know, yes,
(24:39):
he was son of e Kanter and Jewish, But I thought,
as I wrote this book, what was his belief system really?
Speaker 5 (24:47):
Like?
Speaker 2 (24:47):
You know, his second wife, Ellen Mackie, was Catholic. That
it was, if anything, patriotism, you know, the sort of
highest ideals. I know that sounds corny and simplistic, however
I think that's the way he was, and others were
like that. It was not that unusual for immigrants from
(25:07):
Europe who felt that sense of gratitude because if they
had stayed back in Eastern Europe or somewhere else, you know,
they would have been crushed. So you hear all that
in Berlin's music. There's something about Irving Berlin which just
gets everybody. They think, oh, yeah, who's he? And then
once they get going, you know, he wrote that. He
wrote that, He wrote that, and the stories about him
(25:28):
are so unlikely. You can't believe a person like this existed,
except he did. There was a naivete. It now seems
naiva because it we're also jaded now that you know,
was really kind of inspiring. Eventually, of course, he went
on to Hollywood, so he was not really a creature
of Hollywood in the same way as he was of
Broadway and reviews here. But you know, he wrote some
(25:51):
very important successful musicals as well, and he collaborated with
Bing Crosby and so many others. Oddly enough, he wrote
White Christmas when he was in La. He was there,
he was warm and sunny, and he was longing for
the snow. Well, if there's enough snow for enough weeks,
you don't for it any you are. But if you
(26:12):
are somewhere warm and it's the same every day, because
I know that feeling I meant spent a lot of
time in LA, you begin to have a longing for it.
Speaker 5 (26:20):
The sun is shining, the grass is green, the orange
and palm trees. Sway has never been such a day
in Beverly Hills, LA. But it's December the twenty fourth,
and I'm longing to be up north, a reaming blah blah.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Why it's just so clever the way he capitalized on
this longing for hope, and then during World War I,
two soldiers began to you know, pick up on it.
It was the sense of longing for nostalgia for home.
These are just basic universal things. They were not economic,
(27:12):
and they were not political, you know. It was just
a feeling of wanting to be home of shared experiences.
Speaker 4 (27:20):
See.
Speaker 6 (27:20):
I wrote White Christmas not with any idea that it
was going to be a so called song hit. I
wrote it for a picture called Holiday Inn. But it
came out of the time and most of our troops
were in areas that had no White Christmas, in the
jungle to the Pacific and the desert North Africa.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
That gave it the.
Speaker 6 (27:43):
Special significance where the boys were concerned, then to civilians,
and so they read.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Something into that song.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
Frankly, I can't take a bow for that.
Speaker 6 (27:55):
They saw into the song, or rather read into its
family a lot of other things that they were terribly
homesick for. I think White Christmas could have been publishing
another time, might have been a so called success, and
I'm sitan it would never.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Have had that emotional deal that was irving Berlin at
his best. The fact that he had such limited resources,
you know, in terms of musical experience was just incredible.
You know, he didn't go to Juilliard, he didn't study opera,
he was not trade. But then when he got to
the last section of his life, in the home stretch,
(28:36):
the last twenty years, it was dispiriting because he repelled people,
He pushed them away, he didn't want to see them,
even some family members. He was suffering from some mental
affliction of old age, and he tried to get treatment
for it, but it didn't make that much difference. So
it was, you know, very ironic that the person who
(28:58):
had created so much spirit and joy and sense of
unity in this country had withdrawn from it.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hangler, and a special thanks to
author Lawrence Bergreen. His book As Thousands Cheer, The Life
of Irving Berlin is available at Amazon or wherever you
get your books. He's also contributed The Life of al
Capone to Our American Stories and Christopher Columbus. Both of
(29:27):
those books too, are available in Amazon. And what a
life story that ending just was. It was just a
twist of irony that this man who meant so much
to the public didn't interact with the public, and not
even his own family for decades. But what a contribution
to American culture and American life. He was Jewish and
(29:49):
he wrote White Christmas. He was Russian and he wrote
God Bless America. Only in America would that be possible, folks.
And this was the land he loved. It was his home,
sweet home. Fifteen hundred songs he gave birth to, including
ones we still hum and are close to our hearts,
(30:11):
The Life of er in Berlin. Here on our American stories.
And we continue with our American stories. He was known
for writing music and lyrics in the American vernacular, uncomplicated,
simple and direct, with his stated aim being to reach
the heart of the average American, whom he saw as
the real soul of the country. Here to tell the
story of Irving Berlin is best selling author Lawrence Bergreen,
(00:33):
who wrote the definitive biography as thousands Cheer the Life
of Irving Berlin, Let's take a listen.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
People had wanted to write some sort of biography for
a long time, and when I began, I thought he
was dead. Most people thought he was dead. Now, as
it turns out, he lives about a quarter of a
mile from where I live now on Beacman Place, in
a same neighborhood, almost in Manhattan. But he'd been a
wreck clues for so long, for decades, he know. It
(01:02):
was like Greta Garbo, I want to be alone. It
was like that. And he was not only a shut in.
He didn't communicate with people, and when he did he
was very, very cranky, and he really only talked to
his doctor and his accountant. And by then his wife
was deceased, and I think his daughter stayed away It's
(01:24):
sad because you know, this was a great songwriter, a
cultural hero, really an example of industriousness. But he suffered
from mental illness, paranoiaus vinility, whatever you want to call it.
I don't know how you would define it. And it
became pronounced when he was about sixty years old, after
(01:46):
the failure of Broadway show Missed Liberty. So it extended
for almost forty years for zero. I mean, it's incredible.
So I was curious what happened to Irving Berlin. How
could this greatest of all American songwriters back in sensus. Apparently,
you know, very charming, sensitive, bright person had become so reclusive. Also,
(02:08):
I started hearing people explained, Oh, yes, didn't you realize
he was an opium addict? Didn't you realize this? In
the absence of information, these rumors crept in. They weren't true.
The truth was both more every day which was his
chronic depression, and there was just false you know, there
(02:29):
were people who were envy as of him or spite.
You know, I was thinking when Paul McCartney at one
point vanished from public view for a while and everybody
thought he was dead, and then it turned out he
was and he was just taking a breather, you know.
It was kind of like that. So I was intrigued
by what had happened and how this person who was
an untrained, self taught musician became as Alexandra wilcint said,
(02:55):
he is American music, So how did that happen? So
that was what I was curious about.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Anything you can do, I can do better. I can
do anything better than you.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Oh you can't.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yes I can.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Oh you can't.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Yes I can.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Oh you can't.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
Yes I can.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Yes I can.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Anything you can be.
Speaker 5 (03:16):
I can be greater sooner or later.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
I'm greater than you.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
No you're not.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Yes i am. No you're not. Yes i am, No
you're not. Yes i am, Yes I am.
Speaker 5 (03:26):
I can chewed up cartridges way a single cartridge.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
I can get a sparrow with the bow and arrow.
Speaker 5 (03:32):
I can live on bread and cheese.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
And only on that.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
I'm soaking a rat.
Speaker 5 (03:37):
Any O you can reach, I can go higher.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
I can sing anything higher than you.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
Oh you can't.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Yes I can.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Oh you can.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Yes I can.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Oh you can, Yes I can't.
Speaker 4 (03:46):
Oh you can. I can.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
There were a lot of documents going back to his
immigration as a child to New York. His father kind
of sad story as a canter in Russia, fleeing the
depression there with his family coming here, unable to find work,
becoming a butcher. You know, the very very difficult lives
of immigrants Jewish, Italian, Irish Polish who were trying to
(04:20):
make their way in the United States. But it was
a tough struggle. It was not a pretty picture, and
there were no obvious paths to success. The one that
Berlin started to take was as a street musician, and
he lived on the street, so he really came from
a very very as now they would now say, disadvantaged background.
(04:41):
So how did he manage to overcome it? A lot
of it was his incredible work ethic. He was absolutely indomitable.
He was also honest. I did not hear stories about
Irving Berlin cheating people, or gambling, or being a womanizer
or or drug addict, or all the other things that
(05:02):
seemed to go along with some of this mythology. He was,
in some ways kind of a solitary genius, although after
a while he became associated with many many celebrities because
of what he did, and the most intriguing part to
me was how did he write his music if he
was not a trained musician and he didn't go to
(05:24):
any music school in Russia. He didn't go to anything
like that here. Not only that he played his pieces
on especially prepared piano. People thought it was unique to
Irving Berlin, but it wasn't. And he played only the
black keys. So part of it was because if he
put his fingers on the keyboard, deal they stuck up,
they were right there. Not only that, but to change keys,
(05:47):
he wasn't able to do that in that very difficult
to learn, especially for somebody like me. Fingering way. It
was a transposing piano. It was an invention that many
self taught or uneducated ten pan alley composers used. So
there was a bar underneath it. You changed it and
the piano changed key, so that simplified things. There are
(06:10):
some video demonstrations in the early fifties on TV where
he showed how he did it.
Speaker 5 (06:16):
Tell me IRV, Yeah, this is the funniest looking thing.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
I thought, this is a piano, donting that it isn't
a piano dot piano. This is the French pianol I
ever own. It's what we call a transposing keyboard on
the outworks. Yeah, well, you see, I only playing.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
That shop in the black, oh the black keeps.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
That's right now, with this movable play some cleeriod.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
He wasn't the only one. People kept saying, you see,
only one who had this special, unique prepared piano. But
that's not true. There are a bunch of others. Because
Berlin wasn't the only unchained songwriter trying to make his way.
There were others. He was part of a group of
you know, these were immigrants from Eastern Europe. They were
(07:07):
preceded by Irish immigrants George m. Cohan and other songwriters
who were more or less following the same path. They
were also fighting intense oppression or discrimination and making their way.
Berlin had both advantages and disadvantages. Eastern European Jews from
his background were considered sort of beyond the pale, and
(07:30):
so that made it difficult. On the other hand, he
really had his finger on the pulse of the city
and through some genius or intuition, the American psyche. Now
how he did that, I don't really know, but keep
in mind he wrote God bless America.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
Ah, bless America, that I love.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Stand beside.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
And guide.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
Through the night with a light from the book, from
the Mountains to the Prey to the olds wide with
thee God Bless, Americal, My Home.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Sweet, and many other songs that Easter Parade, White Christmas.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Ah angreaving love of word.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
Christmas just like the LODs? Are you still all?
Speaker 2 (09:01):
How did he do this? This is magic and I
think part of it was genius and part of it
was strategy. He was aware as a composer that songs
geared to holidays were very popular. They were occasional.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
And you've been listening to Lawrence berg Green tell the
story of Irving Berlin and how he came to America
well to escape religious persecution. Jews had been suffering in
Russia for gromas they were called at the time. And
then well, life wasn't easy for his father here. The
opportunities didn't present themselves readily or easily. But to the
(09:37):
son to Irving, Well, he started on the streets as
a self taught street musician, and from there his talent
and more importantly, his work ethos, his work ethic would prevail.
When we come back more of the remarkable story, the
absolutely American story of Irving Berlin here on our American story,
(10:09):
and we continue with our American stories and the life
of Irving Berlin, as told by best selling author Lawrence Bergreen,
who wrote the definitive biography as thousands cheer the Life
of Irving Berlin. Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Of course, White Christmas, which he wrote in about nineteen
forty two on this piano, has become the best selling song,
the most popular song of all time. You know, it
was originally popularized by Bing Crosby, but then countless times
there was a movie White Christmas, and the way it
(10:48):
took off was phenomenal. And most people think it's a
folk tune that in a way is a compliment, because
Berlin knew how to make songs sound as if they
were already there. They weren't complicated, they weren't tricky. He
seemed to find a tune, her inspiration that was just
there and write it down. Oh actually he didn't write
(11:10):
it down because he could not write music. He had
a musical secretary to it who I got to know
named Helmi Cressa, and I spent a lot of time
talking with Helmy about what was it like to write
with Irving Berlin. So Berlin would tap it out on
his prepared piano, sometimes sing it, and his voice that
(11:32):
you can hear in some songs in some movies, especially
This is the Army.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
I've been a soldier quite a while, and I would
like to state the life is simply wonderful. The army
food is great. I sleep with ninety seven others in
the wooden hut. I love them all, they all love me.
It's very lovely. But oh how I hate to get
up in the mall morning. Oh how I'd love to
(12:01):
remain in bed, for the hardest blow of all is
to hear the bugla call, You've gotta get up, you
gotta get up, you gotta get up this morning. Someday
I'm going to murder the bogler. Someday they're going to
find him dead. I lam putatis revellie and step upon
(12:26):
it heavily and spend the rest of my life in bird.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Let's put it this way. It didn't have much of
a range. It had a great deal of spirit. But
you know, he was not a sophisticated singer with a big,
booming operatic voice, quite the opposite. So you know, it's
just incredible in the face of all these disadvantages. How
did he manage to do this fifteen hundred times? However,
(12:57):
many songs are attributed to him. It's really really extraordinary,
So I mean, help me, told me the story. Berlin
was an insomniac, so he would often call up help
me in the middle of the night and say, help me,
help me. You know, he's very always very excited of
you know, write this down, write this down, and then
he would start singing a song or plunking it out
(13:18):
on his prepared piano, and then Helm who was his
musical secretary, would write it down, you know, and play
it back for him. They went back over and over
and over for hours on end, night after night to
get a song right. It wasn't just you know, one time,
Oh here's a song, write down, got it good. No,
it wasn't like that. They were incredibly painstaking and refining
(13:40):
it and he would have help me repeat it. Does
it sound better this way? Does it sound better that way?
A slight change in the rhythm, a slight change in
something else about it, until he was satisfied with it.
When that stage was done, it was given to somebody
else to orchestrate, because often these songs were played for
a movie or on Broadway shows, you know, with an
(14:02):
orchestra or a quartet or something else. So it was
a multi step process. Also, what was remarkable was, unlike
most songwriters, although there are exceptions, he wrote the words
and the music. There are a few others who did that,
Colporter and some others, but Berlin. It was almost always
words and music by Herving Berlin. This was also remarkable
(14:26):
because keep in mind that English was his second language. Now,
of course, he had a very acute ear for language,
and his choice of words and syllables was just perfect,
the intervals, and it always sounds so natural, unless he
wants to be tricky or play games or something, but
it sounds so natural. He became thought of, or considered,
(14:50):
you know, a quintessentially, despite all his varied roots, as
the quintessentially American songwriter, beginning with his first hit nineteen eleven,
Alexander's Ragtime.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
Band, Come On in Here, Come On in Here.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Alexander's Ragtime Band, Come On in Here, Come On in Here.
It's the best band.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
In the man and they can play a bugle call like.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
You never heard you call, so natural, let's want to
go to law.
Speaker 5 (15:23):
That's just the best band.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
What a oh honey, Lamb, come on along.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Come on alone?
Speaker 2 (15:31):
And again people thought this was a folk tune, but
Irving Brillant wrote it. He was drawing on an American
tradition of an Alexander song, that's a genre mainly among
African American musicians, and he thought that would just make
for a peppy tune. And this one caught on, and
(15:52):
we now think of it as, you know, a highly
representative song from that era. Most people heard these songs
through life music, and recorded music was slow in coming.
Eventually it would spread, of course, on the radio and
television and movies, but at this point it was basically
live music in restaurants and in shows and things like that.
(16:15):
So the performers were very important, and their ability to
send the song, to make that note carry all the
way to the back of the auditorium or the bar
or whatever, you know, above a noisy crowd, was really important.
The best example of that was ethel Merman, who I
had actually seen performed. She was in some of his
(16:36):
later shows. She could practically shattered glance practically, you know,
with her voice. It was so powerful, So you know,
Berlin wanted to hear his lyrics, so he would often
stand in the back of the theater to see if
the voice would carry and if somebody had a beautiful
voice but it was kind of soft, you know, that
didn't work. He also did a lot of reviews as well,
(16:59):
which he enjoyed doing, and he was extremely enterprising. He
has set up his own music publishing company, Irving Berlin Music,
which gave him a great deal of control, and eventually
he built with some partners and owned the music Box
Theater on Broadway. This is now would be called vertical integration.
I've been in shows at the music Box Theater and
(17:21):
it's still there. It's a beautiful theater. Eventually he became
one of the founders of escap to protect music. I mean,
it was a very important thing that he did because
it had been no way to collect royalties at that point,
especially as a recording industry. You know, now it's more
important than ever because it's so many different ways of
doing it. So you know, he really was a pioneer
(17:44):
in so many ways. Of course, it's the songs that
you know, have seeped into our collective consciousness that are
so wonderful, and you wonder, oh, yes, where did that
come from? Give Riy Gards a going away? Irving Berlin,
so many others. Not all of them are equally famous,
but you know many many of them are household words
(18:04):
that people say, oh, I didn't realize. Irving Brilliant wrote that.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
Song if you're blue, you don't know where to go? You,
why don't you go where Harlem's pet at the risk?
And go down Tom on the bezy, am I Brown
from down the levee? All it's ten Aughton on a risk?
Not very Ginary Lou balgo every birdy evening with Hurt Welboa,
(18:35):
Robbie albout come with me? And will the band there
to Boulie and seven bend there last two bits at
the risk.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
And you've been listening to best selling author Lawrence Bergreen
share the story of Irving Berlin his biography as thousands
cheer The Life of Irving Berlin. Well, you can get
it at Amazon or the usual suspects. And we learned
that Berlin's talent was that he knew how to make
songs that sounded like they were already there. And then
(19:07):
on the business side, owning his own publishing, forming as
Gap which would create royalty collections. The business side of
the business was a part of his genius too. When
we come back more of the story of Irving Berlin
here on our American story and we continue with the
(19:39):
story of Irving Berlin and telling that story as best
selling author Lawrence Bergreen, let's pick up where we last
left off.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
He just had an incredible catalog. He also, despite the
fact that he was a generally withdrawn person and at
times kind of cranky, was a wonderful collaborator. And when
he made friends with somebody, whether it was Alexander Wilcomp
the Critic, or Cold Porter or many other singers and performers,
he stayed friends. And he was a great musical partner.
(20:11):
And he just had this phenomenal drive to keep working.
You know, nothing stopped him. During the war, he wrote
a show a review that was meant as a morale
booster called This is the Army. And he had been
in the Army in World War One and he had
written one famous song and he got out of it.
Oh how I hate to get up in the morning,
(20:32):
because he was an insomniac, and he really did hate
to get up in the morning. I mean really anyway,
this was now one more later in World War Two,
he revived that song and wrote a bunch of others
and not only decided to have a really patriotic motivation,
used this show to raise money to donate to the
(20:54):
war effort, but to travel with it. So he put
on a uniform and he traveled with them around the
world performing. It was dangerous. This was you know, they
were on a warship. They were not going on luxury cruise.
And by coincidence, the members of the crew of This
is the Army bonded a lot because it had been
(21:16):
an incredible experience for this patriotic cause. Every five years
they got together here in New York for a reunion.
By coincidence, they were having a reunion when I was
writing the book, So I made a bee line for
the hotel where they were and recorded or wrote down
their reminiscences of what it was like to travel around
(21:38):
the world with Irving Berlin and raising funds to support
the war effort. So why did Berlin do it? He
loved having an audience. It was partly that. Also he
did really feel a sense of patriotism about this country,
which it was just a sense of gratitude that he
was here and that he was safe, that he wasn't
in a country that was over with programs basically race
(22:02):
riots against Jews or others, and that there was some
sort of education, there was some sort of expectation that
one could get along, make money rise above one station
if one worked hard. And of course, if you were
in Russia, and I guess he came from a little
town called Mogolev, it was not that way. It was
a very very grim existence and very hard to advance.
(22:26):
It sounds naive, but this really was, you know, a
land of opportunity compared to other places, especially compared to
Eastern Europe or to Ireland, which is why so many
immigrants came to New York. This is a well known story,
but it's worth reminding people. You know, It's just a
shame that fifteen years later, by the time he got
(22:48):
to the show Mister President, which was an expression of
his patriotism and optimism and all that, and which failed
on Broadway, by then it was a parent that there
had been a tectonic shift in the national sentiment. And suddenly,
after he had been on the cutting edge, the culture
was passing him by what seemed like tried and true,
(23:09):
reliable sentiments were no longer the order of the day,
and he didn't take it well. On the other hand,
by then he was hugely wealthy, very successful, and you know,
didn't actually need to keep grinding out more and more songs.
But you know, it's a shame that he dropped from
public view. As I mentioned, that's I thought almost of
(23:31):
you know, when I wrote this book, what you know,
the subtitle would be whatever happened to Irving Berlin? But
as I think, two things, he changed and also our
culture changed. You know, there are other songwriters from that era,
Rogers and Hammerstein and countless others who underwent the same
kind of difficulties and transformation as Berlin, but he was
(23:54):
a particular extreme example, and because he was a pioneer,
it was you know, as Alexander Wolcott said, I bring
Berlin has no place in American music. He is American music.
And by that he meant that he kind of defined
the boundaries, the spirit, the holidays, the sentiments that seem
(24:16):
so American. There's no more American song than White Christmas,
except perhaps God Bless America, all of which Berlin donated
all the royalties from that monster Gate. But he was
motivated by a sense of gratitude. And you know, he
didn't make a big deal out of self promoting to
do that, but that was his sense. So you know, yes,
(24:39):
he was son of e Kanter and Jewish, But I thought,
as I wrote this book, what was his belief system really?
Speaker 5 (24:47):
Like?
Speaker 2 (24:47):
You know, his second wife, Ellen Mackie, was Catholic. That
it was, if anything, patriotism, you know, the sort of
highest ideals. I know that sounds corny and simplistic, however
I think that's the way he was, and others were
like that. It was not that unusual for immigrants from
(25:07):
Europe who felt that sense of gratitude because if they
had stayed back in Eastern Europe or somewhere else, you know,
they would have been crushed. So you hear all that
in Berlin's music. There's something about Irving Berlin which just
gets everybody. They think, oh, yeah, who's he? And then
once they get going, you know, he wrote that. He
wrote that, He wrote that, and the stories about him
(25:28):
are so unlikely. You can't believe a person like this existed,
except he did. There was a naivete. It now seems
naiva because it we're also jaded now that you know,
was really kind of inspiring. Eventually, of course, he went
on to Hollywood, so he was not really a creature
of Hollywood in the same way as he was of
Broadway and reviews here. But you know, he wrote some
(25:51):
very important successful musicals as well, and he collaborated with
Bing Crosby and so many others. Oddly enough, he wrote
White Christmas when he was in La. He was there,
he was warm and sunny, and he was longing for
the snow. Well, if there's enough snow for enough weeks,
you don't for it any you are. But if you
(26:12):
are somewhere warm and it's the same every day, because
I know that feeling I meant spent a lot of
time in LA, you begin to have a longing for it.
Speaker 5 (26:20):
The sun is shining, the grass is green, the orange
and palm trees. Sway has never been such a day
in Beverly Hills, LA. But it's December the twenty fourth,
and I'm longing to be up north, a reaming blah blah.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Why it's just so clever the way he capitalized on
this longing for hope, and then during World War I,
two soldiers began to you know, pick up on it.
It was the sense of longing for nostalgia for home.
These are just basic universal things. They were not economic,
(27:12):
and they were not political, you know. It was just
a feeling of wanting to be home of shared experiences.
Speaker 4 (27:20):
See.
Speaker 6 (27:20):
I wrote White Christmas not with any idea that it
was going to be a so called song hit. I
wrote it for a picture called Holiday Inn. But it
came out of the time and most of our troops
were in areas that had no White Christmas, in the
jungle to the Pacific and the desert North Africa.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
That gave it the.
Speaker 6 (27:43):
Special significance where the boys were concerned, then to civilians,
and so they read.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Something into that song.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
Frankly, I can't take a bow for that.
Speaker 6 (27:55):
They saw into the song, or rather read into its
family a lot of other things that they were terribly
homesick for. I think White Christmas could have been publishing
another time, might have been a so called success, and
I'm sitan it would never.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Have had that emotional deal that was irving Berlin at
his best. The fact that he had such limited resources,
you know, in terms of musical experience was just incredible.
You know, he didn't go to Juilliard, he didn't study opera,
he was not trade. But then when he got to
the last section of his life, in the home stretch,
(28:36):
the last twenty years, it was dispiriting because he repelled people,
He pushed them away, he didn't want to see them,
even some family members. He was suffering from some mental
affliction of old age, and he tried to get treatment
for it, but it didn't make that much difference. So
it was, you know, very ironic that the person who
(28:58):
had created so much spirit and joy and sense of
unity in this country had withdrawn from it.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hangler, and a special thanks to
author Lawrence Bergreen. His book As Thousands Cheer, The Life
of Irving Berlin is available at Amazon or wherever you
get your books. He's also contributed The Life of al
Capone to Our American Stories and Christopher Columbus. Both of
(29:27):
those books too, are available in Amazon. And what a
life story that ending just was. It was just a
twist of irony that this man who meant so much
to the public didn't interact with the public, and not
even his own family for decades. But what a contribution
to American culture and American life. He was Jewish and
(29:49):
he wrote White Christmas. He was Russian and he wrote
God Bless America. Only in America would that be possible, folks.
And this was the land he loved. It was his home,
sweet home. Fifteen hundred songs he gave birth to, including
ones we still hum and are close to our hearts,
(30:11):
The Life of er in Berlin. Here on our American stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com