It Had To Be You: A Song History

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"It Had to Be You" was published in 1924 by Jerome H. Remick & Co. of New York and Detroit, with music by Isham Jones and a lyric by Gus Kahn.[1] Surviving copies differ in the names they display: the title page of Connecticut College's copy names Holt & Leona,[1] while the Detroit Historical Society's copy features Heller & Riley on the cover.[2] Jones was born in Coalton, Ohio, in 1894 and grew up in Saginaw, Michigan, where he studied saxophone and piano before founding an orchestra that toured the United States and Europe; the Songwriters Hall of Fame names this song among the biggest hits of the day that he wrote.[3] Kahn, born in Coblenz, Germany, in 1886, came to the United States in 1891 with his family, who settled in Chicago, and the Hall lists the song among his standards.[4]

Victorian valentine decorated with lace paper, satin and faux pearls around a painted flower

Esther Howland, Valentine with lace paper and faux pearls, about 1855. A Victorian valentine, shown for the song's love theme; it has no connection to the song.

The Discography of American Historical Recordings shows the singer Marion Harris recording it for Brunswick in New York on 28 March 1924, with an orchestra and Phil Ohman on piano, for release on Brunswick 2610.[5] The Silver Slipper Orchestra, led by Phil Boutelje, recorded it for Columbia in New York on 9 April.[6] Jones's own orchestra recorded it in Chicago on 24 April 1924 as a fox trot, issued on Brunswick 2614 with a disc label marked "For dancing."[7]

The song is one of sixteen in Dana Gruber's Speakeasy And Tin Pan Alley Tunes For Chromatic Dulcimer, a Fingers Of Steel book of chromatic dulcimer solos from the early twentieth century, all in DAD tuning with no capo.[8]

Our book that contains the song "It Had To Be You"

Sources

  1. Connecticut College, Historic Sheet Music Collection: "It Had to Be You" (Gus Kahn and Isham Jones, 1924).
  2. Detroit Historical Society: "Music, Sheet - It Had to Be You".
  3. Songwriters Hall of Fame: "Isham Jones".
  4. Songwriters Hall of Fame: "Gus Kahn".
  5. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Brunswick matrix 12760-12762. It had to be you / Marion Harris ; Phil Ohman".
  6. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Columbia matrix 81678. It had to be you / Silver Slipper Orchestra".
  7. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Brunswick matrix Ch115-Ch117. It had to be you / Isham Jones Orchestra".
  8. Fingers Of Steel: "Dana Gruber, Speakeasy And Tin Pan Alley Tunes For Chromatic Dulcimer".
  9. Image: Esther Howland, Valentine with lace paper and faux pearls, about 1855. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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