# Need a song from the early 40's **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 3, 2020, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-song-from-the-early-40s/854987 "2020-06-03T15:55:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Fortyfold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7c8e57/32.png) [@Fortyfold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fortyfold)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-song-from-the-early-40s/854987/21 "2020-06-13T08:05:42Z")
‘You’ll Never Know’ would be a good choice I think. Recent to 1944, and just right for singing to someone you don’t really know very well. ---
**Author:** ![eunoia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eunoia/32/97_2.png) [@eunoia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eunoia)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-song-from-the-early-40s/854987/22 "2020-06-14T06:56:28Z")
Helen O’Connell - All Of Me w/The Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra (1939) [![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/2/28abdd4d66d42d6e8667dbcf23c1050a187fea31.jpeg "Helen O'Connell / All Of Me (1939) / w/The Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIy_UByP_JQ) ---
**Author:** ![Alley\_Dweller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alley_dweller/32/430_2.png) [@Alley\_Dweller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alley_Dweller)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-song-from-the-early-40s/854987/23 "2020-06-14T11:17:58Z")
> [@digs](#): > > No, no, no… here’s your chance to write your own song. > > And you won’t have to worry about the music, just write a verse and a chorus, put them in italics, and bingo! If your character’s capable of creativity, you can have it be a song he wrote. Either he’d been working on for years and dedicated it to her, or she gave him the inspiration to compose it, I agree. Also for a more practical reason, if you intend to publish this novel and are not just writing it for yourself to read, if you use a real song, you’re going to have to deal with clearances for the song. (Music copyrights are nasty.) If a little-known author submits something like that to a publisher, that might be a turnoff right there. If you’re lucky, the publisher might make you replace it, if not, they might just stop reading. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-song-from-the-early-40s/854987/24 "2020-06-14T15:12:41Z")
It’s a novel, not a movie or a play script. It doesn’t need any more than just naming the song. No need to include any of the lyrics. No copyright issues just naming a song. ---
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-song-from-the-early-40s/854987/25 "2020-06-14T16:19:44Z")
> [@Fortyfold](#): > > ‘You’ll Never Know’ would be a good choice I think. Recent to 1944, and just right for singing to someone you don’t really know very well. Lovely. Lots of very famous people have done this song, but I’m partial to [this version](https://youtu.be/3u3W-byPd6c). ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2020, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-song-from-the-early-40s/854987/26 "2020-06-15T01:48:29Z")
Maybe listen to some actual guitar-accompanied (I assume what your protagonist is playing is a guitar?) vocal recordings from the era and find out the sort of thing singers would actually sing solo to their own guitar accompaniment? I think many of the classic soloist-and-orchestra ballads like “You’ll Never Know” or “All of Me” might be perceived in that era as sounding kind of silly with nothing but guitar accompaniment, if guitar arrangements for them even existed at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Baal\_Houtham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baal_houtham/32/13604_2.png) [@Baal\_Houtham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baal_Houtham)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2020, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-song-from-the-early-40s/854987/27 "2020-06-15T14:02:36Z")
> [@ArrMatey](#): > > (…) > The situation: Teenage boy and blues musician wants to serenade a girl he’s recently met. 1944 New Orleans. > > Looking for something he could play and sing outside her window. Bonus points if it’s sweet but a little sad. It’s an interesting question. Music history is not a strong suite for me, but your request sent me browsing through YouTube and Wikipedia. There were melancholy blues songs from before/during WWII, but not many that were sweet and melancholy. (A famous melancholy blues song: Robert Johnson’s _Love In Vain_) I did a lot of self-censoring – rejecting songs because they were about about missing former lovers, or because they were too romantically explicit, or because the music or lyrics were too far removed from the blues. My top candidate is [_The Very Thought of You_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yakzL1Q88c). That’s Billie Holiday’s version. The song was originally released in England, but reached #1 in America in the mid-1930s. Which can be a good thing, because if a person is serenading someone, a well-known song doesn’t have to exactly match the circumstances of their relationship – the performance and mood are more important than the lyrical details. [Lyrics](https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/9117769/Stardust%3A+The+Complete+Capitol+Recordings+1955-1959/The+Very+Thought+of+You) ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2020, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-song-from-the-early-40s/854987/28 "2020-06-17T07:13:31Z")
_Louisiana Fairy Tale_ seems to fit the bill, but it was written in 1935. You may know it as the original theme to This Old House. It’s a very romantic song that a young man might sing to a young woman. _Taking a Chance on Love_ was written in 1943 for the musical Cabin in the Sky. It’s romantic, but maybe not the sort of thing a teenaged boy would sing (the lyrics imply the singer had previous relationships that went sour). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-song-from-the-early-40s/854987.md?page=1)