Lyric by Ira Gershwin (1937)
Music by George Gershwin (1930)

Love walked right in and drove the shadows away
Love walked right in and brought my sunniest day
One magic moment and my heart seemed to know
That love said hello
Though not a word was spoken

One look and I forgot the gloom of the past
One look and I had found my future at last
One look and I had found a world completely new
When love walked in with you.



Melody was written in 1930 but lyrics not until 1937 for the film Goldwyn Follies of 1938. Ira had some reservations. He didn't like inserting the word "right" after "walked" and deleted it from the title when it was sent to the publisher. He also said, "Despite the fact that the song was one of the top of the year, the tune which my brother considered "Brahamsian", it deserved a better lyric." George collapsed and died of a brain tumor on July 11, 1937 and Vernon Duke was called in to finish the score for what was to be an unsuccessful film. The song, however, went on to be recorded by numerous artists over the decades; Dave Brubeck loved it.




Lyric + music by Irving Berlin (1915)

I love a piano, I love a piano
I love to hear somebody play
Upon a piano, a grand piano
It simply carries me away

I know a fine way to treat a Steinway
I love to run my fingers o'er the keys, the ivories

And with the pedal I love to meddle
Not just music from Broadway
I'm so delighted if I'm invited
To hear that long haired genius play

So you can keep your fiddle and your bow
Give me a P I A N O, oh, oh
I love to stop right beside an upright
Or a high toned Baby Grand!



Israel Isidore Baline, a Russian-Jewish immigrant escaping the tsar's pogroms at the age of five, plying his trade singing the popular songs of the day in the dense streets and dingy bars of the Lower East Side at 13 to help feed his mother and seven older siblings, the year 1901. He never learned to read or write music, beginning as a lyricist and having others arrange the melodies he sang to them; he could play piano in F sharp only (just black keys) yet went on to become the towering presence, the icon of American popular music in the 20th century, Irving Berlin. "White Christmas", "Always", "Puttin' On The Ritz", "Easter Parade", "God Bless America" and some 1500 others are his contribution to The Great American Songbook. His first big hit came in 1911 with "Alexander's Ragtime Band". "I Love A Piano" came as ragtime was giving way to jazz. His career ended in 1966 with a song written for an Annie Get Your Gun revival. He became an agnostic and an outspoken supporter of civil rights, which kept him under J. Edgar Hoover's watchful eye for several years. He died at 101, acclaimed decades before by none other than George Gershwin as "the world's greatest songwriter".




Lyric + music by Seiler, Marcus, Benjamin + Durham (1941)

I don't want to set the world on fire
I just want to start a flame in your heart
In my heart I have but one desire
That one is you. No other will do.

I've lost all ambition for worldly acclaim
I just want to be the one you love.
And with your admission that you feel the same
I'll have reach the goal I'm dreaming of believe me

I don't want to set the world on fire
I just want to start a flame in your heart.



This 1941 song is inextricably tied to The Ink Spots, a seminal quartet from 1934 to 1954 which set the stage for rhythm and blues, rock and roll, even doo-wop. They developed, with their lead singer, tenor Bill Kenny, what they called "The Top and Bottom Format". Bill would sing the first chorus, a bass would "talk" the second chorus and the tenor finish out with the third. They might include instrumentation of guitars, ukelele and stand-up; sometimes there would be some dancing in conclusion. Their rhythms, their vocal phrasings, their all-around musicality kept them at the top of their game. The song I remember best hearing as a child was "If I Didn't Care" with Bill Kenny's soaring high tenor. There have been numerous groups usurping the name Ink Spots since 1954 but none with legitimacy to do so.