I Remember You

Music, Victor Schertzinger (1888–1941); lyrics, Johnny Mercer (1909–1976) 

Infodump alert! This melody has a bunch of strange shit about it. I first heard it in 1963, sung by Frank Ifield, an Australian, but I had no idea how old it was until years later. I thought it was a new song, or at least a fairly recent one. Unlike any of the songs here, it could have been written during any decade from the ‘30s to the ‘60s. This melody has one of the strangest, most eerie vibes I’ve ever heard. I wish I were capable of writing something similar. 

Victor Schertzinger was a four-year-old violin prodigy who went on to play with John Phillip Sousa’s band. In 1916, he was commissioned by Thomas Ince, the film producer/director, to compose music for the silent film, Civilization. He would continue to do music for films as well as write, direct, and produce them for the rest of his life. 

Johnny Mercer had no formal music training, but he wrote 1500 songs over his career. He was from Savannah, Georgia and was one of the few White composers of the period who acknowledged being heavily influenced by Black musicians. As a young man he bought records by Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong, among other Black artists. He teamed up with Hoagy Carmichael in the 30s. “Lazybones”, my 1933 song, was his first hit. The two of them also wrote “Skylark”, a personal favorite of mine. He also wrote “Moon River”, my 1961 song. Allegedly, he wrote “I Remember You” for Judy Garland (who, it’s said, he had an affair with when she was 19 and engaged to David Rose).