A Stranger Here: Year by Year in Popular Song: 1939

As I peruse the lists of popular songs in 1939 it does seem to me that the music has grown somewhat tamer at the end of the decade. It's just a feeling, a hunch, and it would take some digging to prove. I should also add that the feature song for this year (see below) is a massive exception to that rule. But in any case, none of this means that there wasn't a lot of good music in '39. In fact, there were some rather incredible high-water marks that year, and you will soon see.

Let's start with some Western Swing, shall we? Bob Wills recorded an all-time standard this year: That's What I Like about the South. This is a happy-go-lucky white man's view of the South, a South without shadows. Ironic that in the same year we will have another classic song about the South, but this one very different (see the featured song below).

Also in '39 Gene Autry produced a Cowboy classic: Back in the Saddle Again. And Roy Acuff was hitting big with Freight Train Blues and Wabash Cannonball.

We need to recognize the achievements of Glenn Miller here. In a short time he produced an incredible number of tunes that have remained with us ever since. Here are three from '39:

And keeping in the same mood, clarinetist Woody Herman went to the Woodchopper's Ball.

Now I want to finish up this installment with two of my favorite singers and two of my favorite songs. First, Mildred Bailey is the singer, the band is Duke Ellington's, and the song is Johnny Mercer's I Thought about You.

A note before getting on to the feature song. First, since doing this series on music from the 1930s, Mildred Bailey has been a revelation to me. I hadn't known her music well. She's wonderful, and of course Ellington's band was simply the best. Then about the song itself: Mercer was the lyricist, and I think it's really fine work. Mercer was known in the early years for whimsical lyrics (Lazy Bones, Jeepers Creepers, I'm an Old Cowhand, and countless others), and in his later years for some serious classics like "Moon River" and "Days of Wine And Roses." He was a fine singer in his own right with a relaxed and bemused style befitting his lyrics. I rank him very close to Hoagy as one of my favorite songwriters, and "I Thought About You" is one of his best.

Now we come to the feature song for the year 1939, and truly there can only be one. Billie Holiday's Strange Fruit. This a monumental song, a moment in the history of recorded music that stands as a kind of Mt. Everest, surrounded only by foothills. There ought to be a statue to Billie for this song. Let us never forget.

Southern trees bear strange fruit Blood on the leaves and blood at the root Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees Pastoral scene of the gallant south The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh Then the sudden smell of burning flesh Here is fruit for the crows to pluck For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop Here is a strange and bitter crop