MOTIVATION BY SONG
During Sean Rasmussen’s excellent webinar entitled MY STORY which was presented on November 30th 2009, he used the phrase “Look for the Silver Lining “. Having been a professional pianist for 50 years I was reminded of the song composed by Jerome Kern and Buddy De Silva in the 1920 s, entitled ” Look For The Silver Lining “. Hooray for Google ! Two minutes after typing in the title I had the lyrics at my fingertips. It set me thinking of how music has been used for all purposes since the beginning of time, mainly of a positive, inspiring, uplifting and motivational nature [ we will forget any negatives such as war ] and of course romantic. I’d like to share a few of these priceless lyrics with you, dear reader.
LOOK FOR THE SILVER LINING
Jerome Kern / Buddy De Silva
Look for the silver lining
When e’er a cloud appears in the blue.
Remember some where the sun is shining,
And so the right thing to do,
Is make it shine for you.
A heart, full of joy and gladness,
Will always banish sadness and strife.
So always look for the silver lining,
And try to find the sunny side of life.
It’s quite old world by our contemporary language style, but it does give a positive message for us to follow and be encouraged. As Sean said, there is always a Silver Lining to be found if only we look for it…….LOOK FOR IT
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One part of my musical work entails playing for old time dancing, which is a far cry from my preferred music art form of Jazz, but it does allow me to exercise lots of creativity and to explore lots of older repertoire. There is a requirement to play songs which length-wise are multiples of 32 bars or measures, and coincide with the very structured dance forms my patrons require.Song writing in the 1920 s to the 1960 s nearly always was confined to songs of 32 bars length, so it’s a natural for me to work out medleys of 2-4 songs of the same tempo and rhythm. For at least 10 years I’ve played and sung a medley of three very positive message songs which I call my Inspiration Medley. They are Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams, On the Sunnyside Of The Street, and Accentuate the Positive. Here they are:-
WRAP YOUR TROUBLES IN DREAMS
Ted Koehler / Harry Barris / Billy Moll
When skies are cloudy and grey
They’re only grey for a day
So wrap your troubles in dreams
And dream your troubles away
Until that sunshine peeps through
There’s only one thing to do
Just wrap your troubles in dreams
And dream all your troubles away
Your castles may tumble (that’s fate after all)
Life’s really funny that way
No use to grumble, smile as they fall
Weren’t you king for a day?
Just remember that sunshine
Always follows the rain
So wrap your troubles in dreams
And dream your troubles away
ON THE SUNNYSIDE OF THE STREET
Jimmy McHugh / Dorothy Fields
Grab your coat and get your hat, leave your worries on the doorstep.
Just direct your feet to the sunny side of the street.
Can’t you hear that pitter pat and that happy tune is your step.
Life can be so sweet on the sunny side of the street.
I used to walk in the shade with the blues on parade.
ButI’m not afraid this rover, crossed over
If I never have a cent I’ll be rich as Rockfeller.
The gold dust at my feet on the Sunny side of the Street.
ACCENTUATE THE POSITIVE
Harold Arlen / Johnny Mercer
You’ve got to accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative
And latch on to the affirmative
Don’t mess with Mister In-Between
You’ve got to spread joy up to the maximum
Bring gloom down to the minimum
Have faith or pandemonium’s
Liable to walk upon the scene
To illustrate my last remark
Jonah in the whale, Noah in the ark
What did they do just when everything looked so dark?
(Man, they said “We’d better accentuate the positive”)
(“Eliminate the negative”)
(“And latch on to the affirmative”)
Don’t mess with Mister In-Between (No!)
Don’t mess with Mister In-Between
There is a cute tale of the origin of Accentuate the Positive. It seems Johnny Mercer, the lyricist, was having therapy for serious depression, which was quite common among the music stars of decades ago. After several sessions he asked the therapist if there was any simple method to counter depression, and the therapist simply answered ACCENTUATE THE POSITIVE. Mercer probably had the outline of the song in his head before he got to Harold Arlen’s studio, and it became a major hit. Mr Arlen is the composer of one of the worlds most requested songs for over 70 years ” Over The Rainbow ” and is my personal favourite composer of that genre.
YouTube has a variety of artists performing these songs. Worth the time to look. Here’s the link to Bing Crosby and Bette Middler singing Accentuate the Positive
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