Pack Up Your Sins and Go to the Devil

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Pack Up Your Sins and Go to the Devil is a song that Irving Berlin wrote and published in 1922.

background

Irving Berlin wrote Pack Up Your Sins and Go to the Devil for the Revue Music Box Revue of 1922 , where the McCarthy Sisters introduced him. In the show, a female comedian in a red devil costume symbolically transported the jazz musicians on stage to hell; in addition the line of text rang out: They've got a couple of old reformers in heaven, making them go to bed at eleven. Pack Up Your Sins and Go to the devil, and you'll never hae to go to bed at all :

In the early 1920s, Berlin experimented with working songs with irregular rhythms, such as in “Everybody Step” (1921). Pack Up Your Sins was one of Irving Berlin's characteristic double songs by merging two similar older pieces for a new composition.

First recordings and later cover versions

Musicians who recorded the song from 1922 onward included Paul Whiteman (Victor 18983), Vincent Lopez and his Hotel Pennsylvania Orchestra (Okeh 4762), Emil Coleman (Vocalion 14462) and the Cal Smith American Orchestra (Gennett 5011). In the following years, Pack Up Your Sins u. a. Recorded by Chick Webb / Ella Fitzgerald , Joan Morris, Chris Ellis (with Digby Fairweather ) and Brooks Kerr ( Salutes Irving Berlin ).

In Berlin, the German jazz pioneer Eric Borchard recorded the Foxtrot under the title “Pack your stuff and go to the devil” in January 1924 for the “Grammophon”.

Ethel Merman interpreted the song in the musical film Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938); the use of the song sparked controversy with the American censorship agency ( Breen Office ), which suspected the lyrics of the song might offend religious feelings , particularly with regard to the text phrases No one gives a damn and HE-Double-L is a wonderful spot , which led to it that Irving Berlin had to revise the lyrics several times.

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ a b c Michael Lasser: America's Songs II: Songs from the 1890s to the Post-War Years . New York, London: Routledge, 2014.
  2. ↑ Russ Kick, Everything You Know About God Is Wrong: The Disinformation Guide to Religion. 2007.
  3. ↑ Tom Lord: Jazz discography (online)
  4. ↑ Gr 14809, mx. 1306 ax, cf. Horst JP Bergmeier and Rainer Lotz, Eric Borchard Story (Menden: Jazzfreund, 1988), p. 11