FOUR POSTER

It isn’t often that I have more than one inducement to write a post, but today I have four:

1. In the last paragraph of my June 20 post (DO YOU KNOW THE WAY TO SANTA FE?), I mentioned the name of lyricist MACK DAVID and promised “more on him later” [like maybe on his birthday].

2. Wikipedia’s post on Mack David has several errors/muddled statements which call for clarification.

3. Today, July 5, is his birthday.

4. Today is my unbirthday. This, being the most important of the four, calls for a celebration (lyrics by Mack David):

As for the rest, Mack David was born July 5, 1912, in NYC. According to Wikipedia, “in the mid-1940s, David began writing songs for New York’s Tin Pan Alley.” But then Wikipedia lists some of his hit songs, including “Rain, Rain, Go Away” (1932) and “I’m Just a Lucky So-and-So” (1939) — an obvious contradiction (he began writing in the early 1930s). There is also a confusing entry that David wrote lyrics for La Vie en Rose, “a French song with lyrics by  Edith Piaf.” In 1950, David wrote English lyrics (not a literal translation) to a mid-1940s French song originally written by Piaf. With David’s lyrics, the song became a hit all over again in America with recordings by Louis Armstrong and others. Her recording was an international best-seller and became her signature song:

That’s all four now.