Irving Berlin, "Say it Isn't So" (1932)

Irving Berlin wrote "Say It Isn't So" most likely in the late summer 1932. It was "registered for copyright as an unpublished song" on August 23rd that year. (Kimball/Emmet, p. 297). At this time he was facing some kind of a writer's block. The songs for Face The Music had been written in summer 1931. Since then he hadn't accomplished that much:

"I wrote them ["Say It Isn't So" and "How Deep Is The Ocean?"] at a period of my career when I felt I was all through [...] I had gotten rusty as a songwriter. I hadn't been working at my trade for quite some time. I developed an inferiority complex. No song I wrote seemed right. I struggled to pull off a hit. I became very self-critical. The result was that I was afraid to publish any song. I had written "How Deep Is The Ocean?" but didn't like it and convinced everyone in the office it wasn't good enough. Soon after, I wrote "Say It Isn't So", which I also discarded". (Irving Berlin 1945, quoted in Kimball/Emmet, p. 298).

While he was out of town "someone in his office" - his partner Max Winslow - gave "Say It Isn't So" to "the nation's number-one crooner" (Barrett, p. 108) , Rudy Vallee who was duly impressed with the song, not at least for personal reasons:

"Vallee, who was going through his own personal crisis in a divorce, related to the lyric; he commented, 'There was I singing the song about my girl seeing someone else and going away - it was all true and happening to me'". (Furia, p. 146)

Vallee performed it on his popular radio show and "Say It Isn't So" became an "overnight hit" (Barrett, p. 108):

"The reaction was good [...] I then re-examined "How Deep Is The Ocean?" and thought better of it. I think these two songs are important because they came at a critical time and broke the ice". (Berlin 1945, quoted in Kimball/Emmet, p. 298)

Gardner (p. 397) ranks "Say It Isn't So" as 13th in his list of the most popular songs of 1932. It was recorded that year by Rudy Vallee as well as by other popular artists of that time, for example :

- Greta Keller (YouTube)

- George Olson & His Orchestra, vocals by Paul Small (YouTube)

- Ozzie Nelson (mp3 from The Internet Archive)

- Connie Boswell (mp3 from The Internet Archive)

- Annette Hanshaw (YouTube)

This song includes an introductory verse that later often was dropped. The refrain has 32 bars but it is not structured along the lines of the AABA' form. Instead it's ABA'C:

Say it isn't so,
Say it isn't so,
Everyone is saying
you don't love me,
Say it isn't so.

Everywhere I go,
Everyone I know,
Whispers that you're growing tired of me,
Say it isn't so.

People say that you,
Found somebody new,
And it won't be long
before you leave me,
Say it isn't true,

Say that everything is still okay,
That's all I want to know,
and what they're saying,
Say it isn't So.

Like many Berlin songs "Say It Isn't So" is built around an popular catchphrase. In this case the title refers to "Say it ain't so, Joe", taken from an apocryphal story about Shoeless Joe Jackson and the Red Sox Scandal in 1920. I think he simply changed it from "ain't" to "isn't" to get this nice alliteration of the "i"-s that is bracketed by another alliteration, "say" and "so":

"On September 29, The New York Times reported that when Shoeless Joe Jackson left the grand jury room the previous day, “a crowd of small boys gathered round their idol and asked: ‘It isn’t true, is it, Joe?’ Shoeless Joe replied: ‘Yes, boys, I’m afraid it is.’ ” Other newspapers and two wire services reported the same basic story, [...] The version that has passed into popular mythology cannot be documented, but perhaps it is reasonable to assume that small boys are not overly sensitive to niceties of phraseology; perhaps the words actually were: 'Say it ain’t so, Joe!' (quoted from AmericanHeritage.com, this is an article written by Lewis Thompson and Charles Boswell, first published in 1960)

In fact it never happened and was only made up by a reporter, as Jackson himself explained in 1948:

"I guess the biggest joke of all was that story that got out about "Say it ain't so, Joe." Charley Owens of the Chicago Daily News was responsible for that, but there wasn't a bit of truth in it. It was supposed to have happened the day I was arrested in September of 1920, when I came out of the courtroom. There weren't any words passed between anybody except me and a deputy sheriff. [...] There was a big crowd hanging around the front of the building, but nobody else said anything to me. It just didn't happen, that's all. Charley Owens just made up a good story and wrote it. Oh, I would have said it ain't so, all right, just like I'm saying it now." (quoted from Nakedwhiz.com)

But this story was well known and regarded as true and as Berlin himself "liked to explain, [...] people were tickled by a love song derived from such an incongruous source" (Barrett, p. 108). "Say it isn't so" is an expression of disbelief, it signifies helplessness and the knowledge that it is in fact true what the song's protagonist wants to have denied by his partner. The use of this phrase paints the relationship between the lovers like the one between the kid and his hero, the admired sports star. This phrase - sometimes only the word 'say' - is repeated throughout the song and this kind of insistent repetition - a major stylistic device in many of Berlin's lyrics, the song titles are like slogans - is responsible for much of this song's effectivity.

The melody of the refrain of "Say It Isn't So" is built around this motif:

In the first bar it is set to 5 repeated e-s. In the third bar this phrase is repeated a half step lower and in bar five another half-step lower. The first eight bars:

This leitmotif, the four eights followed either by a long note or by consecutive quarter notes, crops up in different variations throughout the song. Wilder notes the use of repeated notes that were unusual for Berlin at that time:

"[...] for now here is a song the principal device of which is repeated notes. Well, and good, but Berlin has never resorted to them before. As unenthusiastic as I am about Gershwin's endless use of repeated notes, I'm almost hoping that Berlin continues to use them [...] In spite of the reiteration of repeated notes throughout the song, they somehow do not produce a monotonous effect. It all works" (Wilder, p. 105)

But "Say It Isn't So" had nothing to do with the Gershwins. I think he was inspired to try out this device by "Just A Gigolo" . This song with lyrics by Julius Brammer and music by Leonello Casucci (1928/29) was originally published in Austria as "Schöner Gigolo". Irving Caesar wrote new American lyrics that changed the song's scenery from post-war Vienna to a Parisian Café.

Just A Gigolo.

Everywhere I go,

People know the part I'm playing
[...]

"Just A Gigolo" became a hit in 1931 and it was available in recordings for example by Irene Bordoni (see here on YouTube a Betty Boop cartoon from 1932), Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby (YouTube; he includes the rarely performed verse, the refrain starts after ca. one minute) and Ted Lewis. Today this song is usually known in Louis Prima's swinging version, a medley with "I Ain't Got Nobody" (see a Live version on YouTube).

The first four bars look like this:

This is basically the same idea as the one applied by Berlin in "Say It Isn't So". But it's more important to see the musical differences between "Just A Gigolo" and "Say it Isn't So" as they are much more interesting than the parallels.

For example Berlin used dotted eights instead of Casucci's straight eights to stress the words "say" and "isn't". His descending melody lline is not diatonic but chromatic. This is another example for Berlin's careful and effective use of dissonant sounds. He also makes the long notes even longer, from a half note to a whole and a half. Crooners like Vallee loved this long open vowels. At the end of the p hrase Casucci simply goes down to the d. Berlin from bar 5 to 7 steps up in quarter notes to the b then drops down nearly an octave not to the d but to the c# which is a "blue note" (a raised 4th or flatted 5th) anticipated by the half tone steps e-d#-d in the first 6 bars. In fact Berlin reworks and varies an idea from Casucci's melody in a very creative and intelligent way and makes it his own

The rest of the melody is very different from Casucci's, but in spite of all these differences the reference to "Just A Gigolo" is still recognizable. I don't doubt that this was intended as a musical allusion. He even used one line from Caesar's lyrics ("everywhere I go"). Irving Berlin "knew all the music his audiences knew, and [...] he deliberately and routinely used [...] direct quotation of lyrics and music from other songwriters for associative and expressive effect" (Hamm, p. 108/9). Professor Hamm w rote this about Berlin's early songs but it seems to me equally true for much of his later work (see also my piece about "The Girl On The Police Gazette" and Michael Fitzpatrick's "Chimes Of Trinity"). These musical and lyrical allusions to a song about a "gigolo" give the song a kind of European touch that is evident especially in the recordings by Greta Keller - the Austrian singer whose voice "carried the charm of the Parisian women but never lost the heart of the girl from Vienna" (quote from Wikipedia) - and Connie Boswell.

The chromatic descent in the in the melody of first part of the refrain is very common in popular music. Berlin backs it with major chords G6 - G+ G. But it is more often used with minor chords. In fact it's sometimes called the minor walk, or minor line cliche and can be found i in many songs in different variations. Example are "My Funny Valentine" (Rodgers & Hart), "In A Sentimental Mood (Duke Ellington), Bob Dylan's "Ballad Of A Thin Man", the Beatles' "Michelle" or "Stairway To Heaven".

In its most simple form it's a minor chord with a descending bass line from the tonic note to the sixth, for example in e minor: E - Eb - D - C#. The chords could be: em - emmaj7 - em7 - A7/c#, but there are many other possibilities. Irving Berlin had used it in "Blue Skies" (1925). The first for bars of the A-parts have exactly this chromatic bass line. Obviously he was fond of this device. It can also be found in "Russian Lullaby" (1927) and it seems it was on his mind at the time of writing "Say it Isn't So" as it is also included in "How Deep Is he Ocean".

In "Blue Skies" the chromatic bass line served as a counterpoint to happy sounding lyrics, undermining and debunking them. "Blue Skies" is a song about someone happy about falling in love who deep in his heart knows that the trouble will soon start. "Say It Isn't So" is the corresponding song about the end of love. The same dissonant chromatic descent has been transferred from the bass the melody.

"Say It Isn't So" is a song very typical for Irving Berlin. Writing a popular song often means using bits and pieces from very disparate sources and then turn it into something new . The question is not if a songwriter borrows but what he does with pieces and in Berlin's songs these kind of borrowings always make sense. A good popular song should always sound both familiar and new:

"[...] Berlin, more effectively than any of his peers, drew on the collective knowledge and memory of his audience to fashion dramatic situations and musical phrases similar to those found in songs they already knew, [but] shaped in slightly unexpected ways. His best songs were almost - but not quite - already known to his listeners when heard for the first time. They were old stories with a new twist" (Hamm, p. 108/9)

Of course the story doesn't end here. "Say It Isn't So" later served as an inspiration for other songwriters

"It's The Talk Of The Town" (1933; Symers/Neiburg/Livingston; Connee Boswell on YouTube) is clearly derived from Berlin's song. The lyrics touch similar ground:

I can't show my face,
Can't go anyplace,
People stop an' stare,
It's so hard to bare,
Everybody knows you left me,
It's the talk of the town . . .

The melody is based on a musical motif quite close to the one used in "Say It Isn't So":

The idea of someone hearing gossip that the partner is about to let him/her down was used later in "You Win Again" by Hank Williams (1952):

The news is out all over town,

that you've been seen running around.

Another example is "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" (Whitfield/Strong, 1967), a great hit for Marvin Gaye in 1968:

Ooh, I bet you're wondering how I knew
About you're plans to make me blue
With some other guy that you knew before.
[...]
I heard it through the grapevine
Not much longer would you be mine.
Oh I heard it through the grapevine,
[...]

And then there is Bob Dylan's "Tell Me That It Isn't True" (lyrics at bobdylan.com), a pleasant song released in 1969 on Nashville Skyline. At first I thought it was only related to and inspired by "You Win Again". But in fact Dylan's lyrics tell the same story and uses exactly the same motives as "Say It Isn't So":

a) Rumours all over town (Dylan) - people talking/whispers (Berlin)

b) the girlfriend is planning to put him down (D) - they say she's untrue & she's growing tired of him (B)

c) She's been seen with some other man (D) - People say she's found someone new (B)

d) "All those awful things that I have heard" (D) - "...the things they're saying fill my heart with fear" (B)

e) " I don't want to believe them, all I want is your word" (D) - "I know that they're mistaken, still I want to hear it from you"

f) "Tell Me That It Isn't True"(D) - "Say It Isn't So" (B)

The melody and the harmonies are of course completely different (although Berlin's basic rhythmic motif - four eighth notes followed by a longer note - is still visible at some points, for example in the first bar of this song). Unconscious assimilation can explain a lot, but in this case it looks as though Dylan tried to rewite Berlin's lyrics in his own words.

Literature

Mary Ellin Barrett, Irving Berlin. A Daughter’s Memoir, New York 1994.
Robert Kimball & Linda Emmet (ed.), The Complete Lyrics Of Irving Berlin, New York 2000.
Philip Furia, Irving Berlin. A Life In Song, New York 1998.
Charles Hamm, Irving Berlin, Songs From The Melting Pot: The Formative Years 1907 - 1914, New York & Oxford 1997.
Alec Wilder, American Popular Song. The great Innovators, New York & Oxford 1990
Edward Foote Gardner, Popular Songs Of The Twentieth Century. Vol. 1: Chart Detail & Encyclopedia 1900 - 1949, St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 2000

Many thanks to the uploaders at YouTube and the Internet Archive