Love Me Tender: The Stories Behind the World's Best-loved Songs [Hardcover]

Max Cryer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2009

In 1855, Miss Jane Ross transcribed the melody played by a piper at an Irish village fair. Had she not, the world would never have heard “Danny Boy.” If Robert Burns had missed an old man’s quavering rendition of an ancient Scottish country song, New Year’s revelers would be singing a different tune. A sentimental song from a Civil War-era minstrel show morphed into one of Elvis’ biggest hits. Love Me Tender reveals the surprising origins of these and other favorite songs. Some evolved from folksongs, some from musical theater, while others just came along at the right time. In some cases, a single word made all the difference: Paul McCartney changed “scrambled eggs” to “yesterday” and a classic was born. With stories from all over the world, and from artists as diverse as Bing Crosby, Big Mama Thornton, and T. S. Eliot, Love Me Tender is a delightful read for every music lover.

Editorial Reviews

Review

An absorbing little book of mini-essays trying... with enough trivia to impress even the most knowledgeable pub quizmaster. -- Record Collector

About the Author

Max Cryer is a writer, entertainer and broadcaster. Initially a soloist at Sadlers Wells Opera in London, his music horizons broadened to encompass cabaret and music theatre. He has performed on the opera stages of Vienna and London and in cabaret in Las Vegas and Hollywood. He has an encyclopaedic knowledge of popular song, with a special interest in music theatre, and is an avid collector of musical manuscripts. His career has included stints as a teacher, compere, television presenter and quizmaster, but he now devotes most of his time to writing.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Frances Lincoln (February 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0711229112
• ISBN-13: 978-0711229112
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,781,356 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, February 3, 2009

By 

Charlie "Librarian" (Virginia, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Love Me Tender: The Stories Behind the World's Best-loved Songs (Hardcover)

About: Cryer digs up the origins and legends of 40 songs

Things I Thought Were Interesting:

* The lyrics to Edelweiss were the last Oscar Hammerstein wrote before he died

* Christopher Plummer (Captain Von Trapp) was overdubbed singing in The Sound of Music movie

* The lyricist of Danny Boy never set foot in Ireland

* Irving Berlin, who wrote White Christmas, had a three-week old son who died on Christmas Day

* Mozart did not compose Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

* Neither God Save the Queen nor The Star Spangled Banner mention the nations they are the anthems of

* Happy Birthday is protected by copyright in the U.S. until 2030

* Waltzing Matilda (which isn't a waltz) had its copyright expire in Australia in 1991, but is copyright in the U.S. until 2011, therefore at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Australia had to pay to use its own song


Pros: Short chapters make for easy reading, well written.

Cons: No citations of sources, many songs I have not heard are covered.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A TREASURY OF TUNEFUL TALES, January 27, 2009

By 

Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Love Me Tender: The Stories Behind the World's Best-loved Songs (Hardcover)

You may just find yourself humming along as you're reading along in Love Me Tender: The Stories Behind the World's Best-Loved Songs. Writer, entertainer, broadcaster Max Cryer has a passion for plus thorough knowledge of popular music, and he shares both with us in the stories behind 40 of our top songs. The melodies spring from diverse backgrounds - folk songs, musical theatre, a particular recording or even as in the case of Danny Boy from the tune played by a piper at an Irish village fair in 1855.

We find that contemporary songs such as "Moon River" and "Hello Dolly" as well as established favorites such as "For He's A Jolly Good Fellow" and "Auld Lang Syne" have won the hearts and voices of millions.

As many know, Andrew Lloyd Webber's fantastically popular musical "Cats" was inspired by a volume of poems by T. S. Eliot, "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats." Webber grew to know some of the Cat poems as a child when his mother read them to him. Much later, in 1977 Webber began to think about setting some of the verse to music. By 1980 this was done and he played them for Eliot's widow, Valerie, as it would be necessary to have her approval in order to turn the poems into a musical. She not only approved but gave Webber some fragments of Eliot's work, one of which was an eight line piece, a sad vignette about a once beautiful now aging cat, Grizabella, and eventually "Memory" was born.

Cole Porter was, of course, one of our country's preeminent song writers leaving us a string of hits, including Begin the Beguine. He wrote this after seeing a troop of native dancers on an Indonesian island and remembering a performance he had seen by Martinique dancers who were doing a kind of slow rhumba. This composer found inspiration everywhere. So great was Porter's fame that upon his 1956 arrival in Spain the "Customs officer who inspected his passport, shrieked, `Cole Porter! Begin the Beguine", then kissed his fingers and began to sing the song."

"Love Me Tender" is filled with such vignettes involving everyone from Marie Antoinette to Artie Shaw, Gracie Fields to Elvis Presley, and a multitude in between. You'll not miss a beat with this treasure of tuneful tales.

Enjoy!

Highly recommended.

- Gail Cooke