Sentimental Journey (song)

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Sentimental Journey is a song first published in 1944 and one of the jazz standards . The first recording by the Les Brown and Doris Day orchestras became a number 1 hit in 1945. Over the decades, numerous artists of different styles interpreted the song.

History of origin

One of the authors of Sentimental Journey: Les Brown

The music for Sentimental Journey was written by the American composer and band leader Les Brown together with Ben Homer. The text is from Bud Green .

At the end of 1944, Les Brown played the song for the first time with his orchestra; The singer was Doris Day. It was published in January 1945 by Columbia Records (No. 36769), Twilight Time appeared on the B-side .

The first publication took place in the immediate vicinity of the end of the Second World War . It thus coincided with a time when many American soldiers were starting their journey home. Sentimental Journey then became an unofficial, often-played reception anthem for returning soldiers in the United States . The recording first appeared in the American charts in March 1945 and stayed there for 23 weeks. The highest ranking was # 1, which held the song for nine weeks in a row. It was the first chart success for a song sung by Doris Day. One observer said that Doris Day became “ the voice of the generation of World War II” through this song .

Another version of the Merry Macs appeared with a slight time lag , which was arranged significantly differently and was far less successful than the Les Brown version.

Over the years, Les Brown recorded two other versions of Sentimental Journey , each arranged differently . 1951 was a version for Coral Records . The Ames Brothers took over the singing roles here . In 1994 a version with Barry Manilow for his album Singin 'With The Big Bands was created .

content of the text

In terms of content, it is about the preparations for and the anticipation of a journey by train as well as the sentimental feelings associated with it. It leads into the long-abandoned old homeland and thus into one's own past. The trip should also serve to refresh old memories. By combining the motifs of the railroad and the sentimental past, the song was tailor-made to serve as the theme tune for the television series Eisenbahn-Romantik .

Further recordings

  • In 2009, Sentimental Journey was released by Nellie McKay for her tribute album Normal as Blueberry Pie - A Tribute to Doris Day . McKay rearranged the song for this recording.

Tom Lord lists 352 cover versions of the jazz title.

Parodies

In the post-war period there were numerous parodies in Germany, among other places, that contained completely different texts to the melody of Sentimental Journey.

  • Among other things, it turned into a song about collecting cigarette butts : “ Imagine we found a butt, imagine we found two. Imagine we found a third man, that would be a mess "
  • Johnny (or Charlie) come on, we're gonna eat a corpse
  • Also: Heinrich come, we'll eat a corpse, Heinrich come to the morgue. Heinrich, come on, the corpse is already soft and the meat looks tasty.
  • There was a song among children in care : Conradshöh, you murderer of my youth. Conradshöh, you madhouse. If we had a day out once a month, we wouldn't move out that quickly. The text was also available for other homes, such as Birkenhof (Hanover) or Reinickendorf.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b Tom Santo Pietro: Considering Doris Day . Macmillan 2008. ISBN 9781429937511 , p. 22.
  2. Joel Witburn: Top pop records, 1940-1955 (1973).
  3. Tom Lord : The Jazz Discography (online, accessed August 15, 2014).
  4. An example with a slightly different text
  5. Kreis-Anzeiger, September 20, 2013
  6. Biographical report 1961-1964 in Conradshöhe
  7. ^ Report from Birkenhof
  8. ^ TV game Bambule , in which the song is sung right at the beginning