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Rod &
Kubby. Photo by Bob Gentry, ©2002 by Stanyan Entertainment Group.
A Thought for Today
A toast to everything that touched us all
year long – friends newly met, old friends here and gone but still
remembered.
About today’s download
From the time I paid my quarter for the Sunday Matinee at the El Portal
Theatre in Las Vegas and sat through “Stage Door Canteen” twice I’ve loved
“We Mustn’t Say Goodbye.” I suppose my favorite recording of it is by Jo
Stafford on her GI Jo album but this Arthur Greenslade arrangement is
absolutely wonderful. For one thing it has a marvelous trombone solo by
Don Lusher and I like everything about the setting, the tempo and the
nostalgic chart that truly harks back to the early days of World War II.
With the war long past I didn’t have to keep the ‘chin up’ patriotism that
Al Dubin and James Monaco built into it and so I decided to go for broke
on my interpretation of this great, but these days very much overlooked,
song. I can’t help thinking of it as a plea for things to be the way they
were and not how we might like them to be. If you detect a bit of yearning
in my interpretation, you’ve got that right.
I recorded We Mustn’t Say Goodbye in the early seventies, first at Barclay
studios in Paris and a few months later this recording was made in London
at DeLane Lea. I overdubbed the vocal at Stanyan for release on my albums
“Rod ‘77” & “For Friends and Lovers.” Over the years this version has
appeared on several of my “Songs That Won the War” collections and now and
again I’ll sing it at one of my concerts.
We Mustn’t Say Goodbye was nominated for an Academy Award in 1943. To me
this song deserves a place right up there with I’ll Be Seeing You and The
White Cliffs of Dover as a WWII morale booster. If you are hearing it for
the first time I’d love to know your thoughts on it. For me it’s the
perfect hang in there message for a New Years Eve heading into 2003.
We Mustn’t Say Goodbye
Words by Al Dubin, Music by James Monaco
In dreams we’ll always be together
Beneath a moonlit sky
We Mustn’t Say Goodbye
Each night I’ll push away the mountains
I’ll drain the oceans dry
We Mustn’t Say Goodbye
I promise you
That when the postman rings
My heart will be inside
Each envelope he brings
Oh don’t you know
The memories we’ve gathered
Will never, never die
We Mustn’t Say Goodbye
© 1943 by Morley Music Co. All rights reserved Used by Permission
Tonight it’s dinner with friends at Morton’s (restaurant dropper) then
home for champagne at the midnight hour. You can bet there will be healthy
toasts to Ken, Melinda, Jay, Wade, Eric and especially to you. Be careful
tonight, lots of nuts on the street. If you plan to drink, cab it or take
along a designated driver.
Happy New Year and sleep warm.
RM 12/31/2002 4:30 PM PST
Click on the link below to
start your download:
WE MUSTN'T SAY
GOODBYE
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