1932

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Harry Clarkson (1882–1959); Geoffrey Clarkson (dates unknown); Peter Von Steeden (1904–1990) 

There are a lot of odd things about this song. Oddly, it’s the only song of the 100, besides “I Never Knew”, that I never heard as a child. Oddly, I found it while running through all the songs in the original 1950 1000-song, pop-song fakebook, and thought: this is lovely. Oddly, although it was unfamiliar to me, it has been covered by at least 40 people, including Louis Armstrong, Slim Whitman, Dean Martin, Milton Berle and Paul McCartney, who recorded his version in 2012. Oddly, both Gerry Mulligan and The Ventures did theirs as instrumentals. Oddly, it’s a perfect countermelody to the Fortunes’ 1965 hit, “You’ve Got Your Troubles (I’ve Got Mine)”. Oddly, I couldn’t find another hit––or even another song––by Harry Clarkson or Peter Von Steeden. Oddly, I couldn’t find anything about Geoffrey Clarkson, who I assume is Harry’s brother, nor could I find much of anything about Harry. Oddly, Von Steeden was an orchestra director for at least 15 radio shows, among them The Fred Allen Show, the Abbot and Costello Show, and two I used to listen to: Mr. District Attorney and Break The Bank.

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