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Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class,

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A production of I Heart Radio. Hello,

0:12

and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy Vie

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Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. I

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feel like we just start saying hello

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and Happy Friday. I don't remember how we kick

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off these episodes now anymore, even though

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we've been recording them for a million

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years. Sometimes you

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know, one's brain dips a little. It's

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like how they're doing the thing at the end of the episode

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about where to find us. Sometimes

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I will just go, what is our email address?

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I don't even know? Uh

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So this week we had this accidental two part

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around Irving Berlin, who I had kind

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of thought about as like sort of a

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like a low key Christmas

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e episode for December because

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of the song White Christmas and the movie

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White Christmas. And then it blossomed

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into two parts that could

1:01

no longer happen before Christmas, happened

1:03

after Christmas, but not really about Christmas

1:06

much at all. And

1:11

I do they'll want to talk about the movie White

1:14

Christmas because, as we said

1:17

in the episode, uh it has

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it's a movie that has aged beautifully

1:21

and terribly at the same time. Um,

1:24

Like there's just there are so many

1:26

performances in it that are delightful, in songs

1:29

that are delightful, and also

1:31

the whole movie it

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is really about a man

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who feels old and sad and useless,

1:38

and everyone stops what they are

1:40

doing to try to make him feel

1:43

better. Um, there's

1:45

some age differences in the couples that people

1:48

find a little jarring today. And then there's also

1:50

that song that sort of celebrates how much they love

1:53

minstrel shows. I really

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don't know how

1:58

much influence Irving Berlin

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had over the plot of the movie. Um,

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I did not go look into that, but realizing

2:07

how soon that was to like

2:10

his career winding down and

2:13

how he felt about it, I

2:17

now kind of see it in

2:19

the light of that of like, how

2:22

how much of this character was like

2:24

sort of a reflection of Irving Berlin

2:27

wondering how many how many

2:29

years as an entertainer and a songwriter

2:31

he had left. Yeah,

2:34

it's interesting. I had not known before

2:37

this the context of

2:40

Christmas being a difficult time

2:42

for him. But I have always

2:44

been the person who was like the song White Christmas

2:48

is not a happy song. It

2:50

Yeah, like there are arrangements of it

2:53

that are really peppy, but like it

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can sound wistful

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and nostalgic and just sad,

3:01

like heartbreaking. It's always

3:03

sounded sad to me since I was a kid.

3:06

It I always conjured this image of somebody

3:09

like trapped somewhere where they couldn't get to

3:11

anyone they wanted to see. And

3:14

so now I'm like, oh, maybe

3:16

maybe that's actually kind of how the song is.

3:19

It's not just your weird little gothic

3:21

child read of it. Yeah. I

3:26

um had a very funny

3:28

moment when we were talking in the

3:30

first part of this one about wax

3:34

cylinders and the

3:36

idea of a performer having

3:38

to perform it over and over as they

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recorded one offs, and

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how much like today

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and for a long time, right since mass

3:48

production has been a thing, like

3:50

part of what people know in

3:53

learning of songs are

3:56

like the unique breaths

3:59

and phrases is of a given performer,

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like when they sing it or whatever, And how

4:03

that's one of the things you noticed when you go to a live

4:06

show that they do it slightly differently. And

4:08

imagine if everybody had a different sound

4:11

memory in their head of what it was supposed

4:13

to sound like. And it's just a fascinating

4:15

thing to me that there would never be one definitive

4:18

version of any given song, so

4:20

any changes within performances

4:22

would have completely shifted it. The

4:25

Internet would lose its mind if that were the case.

4:27

It would be like, well mine, he breathes before

4:29

the uh, Like I just can't. It's

4:32

so fascinating. Yeah.

4:34

I didn't realize until working on this, like

4:37

what sheet music. Like I

4:39

took piano lessons as a kid, I had sheet

4:42

music for things, but like, to me,

4:44

the sheet music for whatever was the thing

4:46

purchased to learn

4:48

to play the song for my piano recital

4:50

or whatever. The idea

4:53

that like there would be effort

4:55

put into like a very nicely illustrated

4:57

cover that was also like a marketing effort

5:00

for other sheet music, and then in addition

5:02

to people buying the sheet music, they could learn

5:04

to play a thing on the piano that they would sort of be collecting

5:07

sheet music as these attractive

5:09

things to have in their home. Like that was

5:12

not really a thing that had ever entered

5:15

into my mind until working

5:17

all on this. I

5:20

kind of had a sense of that because I remember

5:23

um when I was younger, when

5:25

I was in my teens and early twenties.

5:27

I did more of this than I have in later

5:29

years. But I used to often go to flea markets

5:31

and just like, and there

5:33

were instances where I would see sheet

5:36

music's grouped together in collections,

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and like, I remember talking to a couple

5:40

of vendors who specifically did have a lot of sheet

5:43

music. Remember this is late

5:45

eighties, early nineties, um

5:47

where they were. They were talking about how, oh,

5:50

some people like to collect, you know, all

5:52

of the pieces from this publisher from this year to

5:54

this year. And so I had a little bit more of a

5:56

sense of it, but I didn't think about

5:58

it being marketed four well to collect,

6:00

if you know what I mean. People often collect

6:02

things that are not intended to be collector's items,

6:05

but these kind of were actually designed

6:07

that way from the top. Yeah.

6:10

One of the things I knew I wanted to include in these

6:12

episodes from the beginning was

6:15

the argument not really argument,

6:17

was Woody Guthrie's response to God

6:19

Bless America. Like, as

6:21

I was taking my very first notes, before

6:23

I had even gone and gotten any

6:26

research about this particular aspect

6:28

of it, I just had in written in there

6:31

like and the Woody gutthree dispute

6:34

Um because man's

6:36

first of all, I just the

6:39

general having a

6:41

dispute between two songwriters

6:43

over music like that in general is like okay, I

6:45

um into that idea. But

6:48

also the fact that so many of Woody

6:51

Guthrie's criticisms of the song like just

6:53

don't hold

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up to his response

6:58

to his response in terms of writing the land

7:00

as your land, especially today, especially

7:02

in the like having today's context

7:05

of things like the land back movement,

7:08

Uh, you know, like

7:10

like that adds a whole new layer

7:13

to what already even

7:16

without that movement that's

7:18

existing now today, Like already

7:20

words like like I said in the episode

7:22

talking about a white man from

7:24

Oklahoma writing

7:27

about this land is my lands, Like, it's

7:30

just a little, a little

7:32

weird choice

7:34

to have that be your song response. There's

7:46

a whole lot of irving Berlin's like work

7:48

and career and impact

7:51

that I just feel like it's just such

7:53

a mess um

7:56

and like so many things at the same time,

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like he really does seem to you have

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understood and valued the musical

8:04

contributions of black performers

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and tried to like fight

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for black performers he was working with

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to be respected and that kind

8:13

of But then like also we gotta

8:15

do black face. We got that whole

8:17

argument. I was like, as I

8:20

the I found an article that was just

8:22

about that, and I was like, yikes, Like this

8:24

is full of yikes, so much yikes.

8:27

But then just also you know, casually

8:30

including stuff that was

8:33

stereotypical or bigoted or whatever

8:35

in songs that he was trying to like, there's just a

8:37

lot of it, uh

8:41

and it um even songs

8:44

that like, I like putting

8:46

on the Rits to me is a

8:48

brilliant song, Like it's

8:50

got just wonderful

8:53

lyrics in my opinion, But also

8:56

like that is a song that he

8:58

wrote about, uh, like

9:00

poor black people in Harlem

9:02

getting dressed up to like

9:05

go out on the town in a way that like

9:08

isn't necessarily read in a flattering

9:10

way when you read the lyrics, but the

9:12

lyrics themselves are incredible

9:15

in my opinion. And also anytime

9:17

I watch uh

9:20

Young Frankenstein, That's exactly what I was thinking.

9:23

Yeah yeah,

9:26

um, that was another thing. I stopped what I was doing

9:28

to watch. I was

9:31

trying to write this, how many YouTube

9:33

videos My whole YouTube Boggerythm is like

9:35

now just all skewed because it's full of

9:38

all kinds of renditions of Herving

9:40

Berlin songs. I

9:42

mean, Peter Boyle forever um

9:46

so funny. I once

9:48

again we'll say, boy I

9:50

sure wish I could get up at noon and go to bed

9:53

at five. That would be just about right for

9:55

me. Yeah, I uh. And

9:58

in many recent years, rs, I

10:00

have been to go to sleep fairly early,

10:03

wake up sometime

10:06

between six

10:08

and seven, like, not even on purpose.

10:10

That's just like what my body is doing. Now

10:12

when you say go to bed early, what does that mean

10:14

for you? Because that means very different things for different

10:17

people. Means ten. I'm usually

10:19

in bed by ten, maybe ten

10:21

thirty. D and D night. It has to be ten thirty

10:23

because that's when D and D ends, And sometimes

10:26

the last thirty minutes of D and D are very

10:28

hard for me. But when

10:31

I was younger, for a while I was working

10:33

in a spot, and I was working a shift

10:35

that went from two pm to nine pm,

10:38

and I gradually, like gradually

10:41

got into this rhythm where um,

10:44

like I would get off of work and treat

10:46

the rest of my day as it had

10:48

been if I had gotten off of work at five,

10:51

like my evening was starting at nine, and then I would

10:54

sleep really late, and then I would get up and go to start

10:56

my two pm shift again. Um,

10:59

and so yeah, I like that

11:01

his like five

11:03

am perfect. Like

11:06

that is a little too far for me,

11:08

but I can. I can. I've had periods

11:10

of my life when I've been a little bit more of a nighttime

11:13

person, and I can, like at least somewhat

11:15

see it working away. Even

11:19

I know it's a terrible

11:22

habit, but even like if

11:25

we have like a chunk of time off, like around

11:27

the holidays or whatever, where there's no obligations

11:29

for several days within three days, Brian

11:31

and I are on that schedule. Like we both just tend

11:34

to want to like wake up at eleven

11:36

or twelve, have the afternoon

11:38

in nighttime, and then go to bed as the sun

11:40

is coming up. I don't know why we divert

11:43

automatically to vampire hours, but we both

11:45

do, thankfully. I feel like I should confess

11:47

that the mere mention of Ethel Merman's name made

11:49

me cry in this episode. Yeah. I wasn't

11:51

expecting that either. Really. I read

11:53

it was like, oh, I love Ethelm, and

11:56

then we talked about it and I just started bawling.

11:58

I don't know what that's about. Yeah,

12:01

Irving Berlin clearly love to write songs

12:03

for. But if you've never seen Ethel

12:05

Merman sing Everything's coming up roses,

12:08

it's very easy to do. Just check out

12:10

YouTube and she's amazing.

12:13

I also highly recommend that Gene stapleton

12:15

appearance on The Muppet Show is also very

12:18

easy to find online, and it is lovely.

12:21

It's so sweet, so sweet,

12:25

Ethel, Ethel and Ethel. And you

12:27

know, clearly I like the very

12:30

brash singers of that era.

12:32

Yeah, yeah, I'm like none

12:34

of the lilting, sweet voiced

12:36

singers I want, Like I

12:38

want Ethel Merman forever. Arthur

12:41

not mentioned in this episode. It's like my dream

12:43

episode. Yeah. The list

12:46

of people like that was not even a complete

12:48

list of all the people that performed in the and

12:51

the hundredth Birthday tribute concert.

12:53

But at like I kept finding

12:55

I was like, gotta put this person in there, Gotta

12:57

put Jerry Orbach in there, Gotta put Yeah,

13:00

so many. I know. I definitely had a sad

13:02

as he read that list because so many of them are gone.

13:04

Yeah, with only a few exceptions. I yeah,

13:08

well, and that's like one of the like living

13:10

to be a hundred and one years old. Like at

13:12

that point, pretty much

13:15

everybody that he had,

13:17

you know, a long working relationship

13:19

with had died before he

13:21

did. He he by the time

13:23

he died, he had this reputation for

13:26

being just kind of reclusive

13:29

and cantankerous

13:31

isn't quite the right word, like, not

13:33

very personable in his last years.

13:37

And after his death, one of his daughters like

13:39

got really frustrated with what people's

13:41

perceptions of her father had

13:43

become and wrote a really I

13:46

have not read it, but it's described as like a very

13:48

lovely and tender um

13:51

memoir about how like totally acknowledging

13:53

that her father worked all

13:56

the time, but that

13:58

also the like late

14:00

years reclusiveness. UM,

14:03

like that just what that wasn't his whole personality

14:05

and that wasn't how people who knew

14:08

and worked with him necessarily would have remembered

14:10

him. So yeah, that's out

14:12

there too if folks want to, I want

14:14

to read it. UM. One of

14:17

the many there's a long source list for

14:19

this episode, UM, And one

14:21

of the many sources

14:23

in that source list is the book UM

14:27

that I mentioned. I

14:29

think we quoted from it briefly in the episode, and that

14:31

was by James Caplan called Earning Berlin,

14:33

New York genius. Um. That is from Yale

14:35

University Press. But in my opinion

14:38

it is really accessible to like non academic

14:40

readers. I know, sometimes stuff that comes out

14:42

from university presses can be a little dense.

14:45

I did not find it to be so at all. There

14:48

were sometimes where I sort of felt like if

14:50

I were Jewish, I would have gotten some

14:52

nuance that I was not bringing

14:55

the way something was described. Um.

14:58

But other than that, like, I found it to be a really

15:01

lovely, inaccessible work on him.

15:03

Um. If folks are interested in more,

15:08

Yeah, Happy Friday. Based

15:11

on when this is coming out, Tomorrow

15:14

is gonna be New Year's Eve, and

15:16

so you will have Saturday Classic

15:18

tomorrow, and I hope whatever

15:20

is going on for folks's New Year's Eve, I hope

15:22

it's great. I've been in jobs

15:25

where I had to work with the public

15:27

on New Year's Eve, and I remember

15:30

that often being a challenging thing. So

15:33

whatever is up with you tomorrow, I hope it's great.

15:35

If you're going to a party, hope it's great. If you're staying home, hope

15:38

it's great. If you have to work tomorrow, I hope that's

15:40

great. Whatever is happening, We'll

15:42

be back with Saturday Classic tomorrow with something

15:45

brand new on Monday.

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Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production

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