For what, and by whom, you may ask, is Irving Berlin owed an apology? Glad you asked. In the immortal but likely apocryphal words of lightning-struck St. Paul, after he ceased being Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus Road, “Something happened to me yesterday.” I cite the writer of Corinthians because what happened to me yesterday carried equal revelatory force.
Please hear me out. I was listening to records by my current favorite jazz singer, Annette Hanshaw, and came upon her 1927 recording of Irving Berlin’s “The Song Is Ended.” At first, I thought I was playing the wrong song because it began:
My thoughts go back to a heavenly dance
A moment of bliss we spent
Our hearts were filled with a song of romance
As into the night we went
And sang to our hearts’ content
Of course, it didn’t take me long to realize that what I was hearing—for the first time!—was the song’s verse. Or maybe it should be called a bridge because it is as splendid as San Francisco’s Golden Gate. One thing for sure: Berlin was taking careful pains—or maybe painful care—to contextualize the song. His verse is meant to prepare the performer and audience alike for one of the greatest lost-love lyrics of all time. And it also explains the song’s raison d’etre:
The song is ende
