Origins
The song originated from Walter Huston's request that he should have one solo song in the musical Knickerbocker Holiday, if he was going to play the role of the aged dictator Peter Stuyvesant. Anderson and Weill wrote the song specifically for Huston's gruff voice and limited vocal range, in a couple of hours.
Knickerbocker Holiday was roughly based on Washington Irving's "Father Knickerbocker's History of New York." Set in New Amsterdam in 1647. It is a political allegory attacking the New Deal through the semi–fascist government of New Amsterdam with a corrupt governor, Peter Stuyvesant, and corrupt councilmen. It also involves a minor love triangle with a young woman forced to marry Stuyvesant while loving another. The musical enjoyed only moderate success and closed in April 1939 after six months. "September Song" was seldom recorded in the 1940s, with recordings by Bing Crosby (1943) and Frank Sinatra (1946). But after Huston's version was used in the 1950 movie "September Affair," and reached number one on pop music chart (see below), the song quickly became established as a modern standard, with many recordings.
Read more about this topic: September Song
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“Grown onto every inch of plate, except
Where the hinges let it move, were living things,
Barnacles, mussels, water weeds—and one
Blue bit of polished glass, glued there by time:
The origins of art.”
—Howard Moss (b. 1922)
“The origins of clothing are not practical. They are mystical and erotic. The primitive man in the wolf-pelt was not keeping dry; he was saying: “Look what I killed. Aren’t I the best?””
—Katharine Hamnett (b. 1948)
“The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)