Blue Melody

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"Blue Melody" is a short story by J. D. Salinger, first published in the September 1948 issue of Cosmopolitan. The tragic tale of an African-American jazz singer, the story was inspired by the life of Bessie Smith and was originally titled "Scratchy Needle on a Phonograph Record."[1] Cosmopolitan changed the title to "Blue Melody" without Salinger's consent, a "slick" magazine tactic that was one of the reasons the author decided, in the late forties, that "he wanted to publish only in The New Yorker."[1]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Alexander, Paul (1999). Salinger: A Biography. Los Angeles: Renaissance. ISBN 1-58063-080-4.  p. 130.

[edit] External Links

"Blue Melody"

v • d • e
Works by J. D. Salinger
Novels:
Short story collections:
Short stories:
"Blue Melody" • "Both Parties Concerned" • "A Boy in France" • "De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period" • "Down at the Dinghy" • "Elaine" • "For Esmé with Love and Squalor" • "Go See Eddie" • "The Hang of It" • "Hapworth 16, 1924" • "The Heart of a Broken Story" • "I'm Crazy" • "The Inverted Forest" • "Just Before the War with the Eskimos" • "Last Day of the Last Furlough" • "The Laughing Man" • "The Long Debut of Lois Taggett" • "The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls" • "Once a Week Won't Kill You" • "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" • "Personal Notes of an Infantryman" • "Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes" • "Slight Rebellion off Madison" • "Soft-Boiled Sergeant" • "The Stranger" • "Teddy" • "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut" • "The Varioni Brothers" • "The Young Folks"