| "Shine On, Harvest Moon" | |
Cover, sheet music, 1908 |
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| Music by | Nora Bayes |
|---|---|
| Lyrics by | Jack Norworth |
| Published | 1908 |
| Language | English |
"Shine On, Harvest Moon" is the name of a popular early-1900s song credited to the married vaudeville team Nora Bayes and Jack Norworth. It was one of a series of moon related Tin Pan Alley songs of the era. The song was debuted by Bayes and Norworth in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1908 to great acclaim. It became a pop standard, and continues to be performed and recorded into the 21st century.
During the vaudeville era, songs were often sold outright, and the purchaser would become the songwriter of record. John Kenrick's Who's Who In Musicals credits songwriters Edward Madden and Gus Edwards, while David Ewen's All the Years of American Popular Music credits Dave Stamper, who contributed songs to 21 editions of the Ziegfeld Follies and was Bayes' pianist from 1903 to 1908.[1] Vaudeville comic Eddie Cantor also credited Stamper in his 1934 book Ziegfeld - The Great Glorifier.[2]
Contents |
Note: The months in the chorus have been sung is several different orders. The Ada Jones and Billy Murray song linked on this article has:
April, January, Ju-une or July [3]
Leon Redbone's cover on his album Double Time had the lyric as:
January, February, June or July.
(repeat chorus)
The song has had a long history with the movies. In 1932, animation great Dave Fleischer directed a short titled Shine on Harvest Moon. A 1938 Roy Rogers western was also named after the song, as was a 1944 biographical film about Bayes and Norworth.
Popular British 1980's comedy drama, Shine on Harvey Moon.
The song has been featured in dozens of movies including Along Came Ruth (1933), The Great Ziegfeld (1936), A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945), The Eddy Duchin Story (1956), and Pennies from Heaven (1978).
By the time Murray was recording "follow the bouncing ball" cartoons in the 1930s, Shine On, Harvest Moon was also very much an "old time tune".