[Unfortunately the YouTube clip I describe from the film On the Avenue is no longer available.] No, that's not Irving and Mildred in the clip; it's Dick Powell pitching ardent woo and singing You're Laughing at Me to a certain "Miss Hasenfeffer" in the 1937 movie On the Avenue. The Irving of my title is the songwriter, last name Berlin.
You're Laughing at Me is one of
Irving Berlin's most ingenious creations. Despite its interesting
features -- maybe because of them -- it's not among his
most memorable or beloved songs, certainly less well-remembered than
four other Berlin songs from the
same movie: He Ain't Got Rhythm, This Year's Kisses,
I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm, and Slumming on Park
Avenue.
The verse is simple, conventional,
leading to the highly unusual opening phrase of the chorus ("You're
laughing at me"). It begins on the sixth note of the scale, dips
a half-tone, then rises four tones to three repeated notes, a forlorn little phrase leaving
the first-time listener momentarily adrift, not knowing where it's
headed next -- a fleeting moment of uncertainty suggesting the state
of mind of a wooer unsure of where he stands vis-à-vis the wooee. The tonality
is quickly clarified with the long phrase, "I can't be
sentimental for you're laughing at me, I know," ending in a
pleading, chromatic descent. Then a surprise: with the words "I
want to be romantic, but I haven't a chance," the key-change
sounds exactly like the bridge in a conventional A-A-B-A song, except
that the B section has arrived eight measures too soon! Four bars
later, another unexpected modulation ("You've got a sense of
humor...") leading us back to a repeat of "You're laughing
at me..." We've been fooled; turns out it's one of those
"half-and-half" songs -- call it A1-A2 in form.
Berlin's musical sleight of hand isn't cleverness for its own sake.
The sudden shifts in tonality in bars 9 through 16 mirror Mr.
Powell's inability to sustain a romantic mood in the face of
heartless Hasenfeffer laughter. It's a brilliant example of form
reinforcing meaning, as deft as it gets in melding words and music.
How this musically
unschooled songwriter did such subtle things is one of life's great
mysteries. On his compositional methods Berlin shed remarkably little
light, hiding his creative struggles behind a matter-of-fact facade:
I
get an idea, either a title or a phrase or a melody, and hum it out
to something definite. When I have completed a song and memorized it,
I dictate it to an arranger..... It's not a matter of inspiration
with me at all. Generally I decide in a very prosaic way that I'm
going to write something, and then I sit down and do it..... Writing
both words and music, I can compose them together and make them fit.
Of You're
Laughing at Me he'd probably say, "It just sounded right
that way."
In his Victor recording of You're
Laughing at Me, Fats Waller sings it with a light touch but
surprisingly straight, in the original tempo, taking few liberties
apart from some verbal asides (and, near the end, getting the lyrics
wrong).
I can't imagine Mildred Bailey singing
it at this tempo; apparently neither could she. Although she was
capable of expressing great vulnerability in ballads (Mildred could sing any kind of pop song, superbly) she reinvents You're Laughing at Me as a medium-tempo swinger, stripped of all self-pity.
Of course when it's 1937 and you're in a recording studio with Roy Eldridge on trumpet, Scoops Carry and Herbie Haymer
on alto and tenor saxes, Teddy Cole, piano, and a rhythm section of
John Collins, guitar, Truck Parham, bass, and Zutty Singleton, drums,
swinging will be high on your agenda.
I don't know what Irving Berlin thought
of Mildred's version, or if he ever heard it, but I doubt he'd be
crazy about it. Most egregiously, from the songwriter's viewpoint,
she changes the tempo. For Berlin, tempo and rhythm were
of primary importance. What's more, she recomposes the first eight
bars of his chorus, as well as the ending. Mildred's new melody line
is streamlined, its predominant feature the descending chromatic
phrase, which makes perfect dramatic sense in its own way. (It's also possible that,
as written, the melody was too range-y for her.) Dispensing with the verse, the record
is solid from the start, with Roy's muted trumpet leading the way. I
like the feisty quality imparted to the song at this tempo, propelled
by Mildred's marvelous feeling for time and the tasty figures
played by the accompanying horns. One gets the feeling that the next time
Mildred pitches woo and gets laughed at, she'll find herself a different catcher.
P.S. I recently learned, by accident and to my surprise, that Mildred's Says My Heart, recorded with the Norvo band and a particular favorite, was one of her biggest commercial successes, staying atop the pop charts for four weeks in 1938. I'm not sure why this should make me feel good 74 years after the fact -- a ton of junk records also were #1 -- but it does.
