Let’s take a trip

Nostalgia has been a major marketing success lately. The game of Trivial Pursuit reeks of it. There are reunions of old television and rock groups galore. However, there is nothing new to the use of nostalgia to market a product. Over 90 years ago, folks were already looking back.

Let’s take a trip on memory’s ship, back to those bygone days. While that’s an ideal lead-in to this month’s article on old songs, those with sharp eyes and memories will recognize it as part of the verse of a popular song written in 1907. Before you go any farther, think about it just a minute. See if your own recollections can identify the work.

This song finds a couple lamenting nothing to do. Sweethearts since their childhood days, Joe suggests to Nellie that they embark upon a nostalgic return to those innocent days of their youth. In their minds’ eyes, they peer into a building where the two wrote love notes, not on paper, but on slate. Yes, this is that beloved old chestnut, School Days.

Will D. Cobb penned the lines we sing, while Gus Edwards provided its unforgettable melody. As featured in the Society’s Heritage of Harmony Songbook, the story of the song indicates that the two collaborated on many songs of the era. This number was the title song for the stage work of the same name. Gus Edwards not only wrote music; he also helped discover such stars as Eddie Cantor, George Jessel, Sally Rand, Walter Winchell, Ray Bolger, Eleanor Powell and Groucho Marx. If none of these names are familiar to you, you are long overdue for a trip back to the "Good Old Days."

-- from Dundalk, MD Charivari, Tom Wheatley, editor

click on image for a higher resolution version to download

back to The Songs We Sing
back to Aids for Bulletin Editors