Gathered together in one volume for the first time: all of the incomparable song lyrics of Irving Berlin, whose career and work are the most important and all-encompassing in the history of American popular music.
Berlin came from a poor immigrant family and began his career as a singing waiter, but by the time he was nineteen he was publishing his songs and quickly found fame with Alexander’s Ragtime Band in 1911. In the extraordinary six decades that followed, Berlin wrote one popular hit after another: Blue Skies,
Always,
Cheek to Cheek,
White Christmas,
God Bless America,
There’s No Business Like Show Business, and many, many more. He also wrote a number of the classics of musical theater’s Golden Age, climaxing with Annie Get Your Gun. He penned three Astaire and Rogers films– Top Hat,
Carefree, and Follow the Fleet –as well as the scores of Holiday Inn,
Easter Parade, and other movies. The breadth of his accomplishments is staggering.
Berlin’s entire oeuvre is here–the lyrics of more than 1,200 songs (400 of which have never before appeared in print), along with anecdotal, historical, and musicological commentary and dozens of photographs.
This beautiful volume is an invaluable contribution to the understanding and enjoyment of popular music in our time.