Moonlight Bay
| "Moonlight Bay" | |
|---|---|
 Cover, sheet music, 1912 | |
| Song | |
| Published | 1912 |
| Composer | Percy Wenrich |
| Lyricist | Edward Madden |
| Language | English |
"Moonlight Bay" is a popular song. It is commonly referred to as On Moonlight Bay.
The music was written by Percy Wenrich, the lyrics by Edward Madden, and was published in 1912. It was often sung in a Barbershop Quartet style, such as by Billy Murray and the American Quartet:
The song was one of a number of early-20th-century songs which were used as titles of musical films made by Doris Day in the late 1940s and early 1950s. See On Moonlight Bay.
Verses
- Voices hum, crooning over Moonlight Bay
- Banjos strum, tuning while the moonbeams play
- All alone, unknown they find me
- Memories like these remind me
- Of the girl I left behind me
- Down on Moonlight Bay
- Candle lights gleaming on the silent shore
- Lonely nights, dreaming till we meet once more
- Far apart, her heart, is yearning
- With a sigh for my returning
- With the light of love still burning
- As in of days of yore
Chorus
- We were sailing along
- On Moonlight Bay
- We could hear the voices ringing
- They seemed to say:
- "You have stolen her heart"
- "Now don't go 'way!"
- As we sang love's old sweet song
- On Moonlight Bay
Pop culture
- The song is sung by two cats in the 1933 Van Beuren cartoon Silvery Moon.
- It has appeared in many Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies shorts, often as a drinking song. Examples:
- It is sung by a quintet of drunk fish in Porky's Duck Hunt in a rowboat, after they swim through a sunken whiskey barrel shot by Porky Pig (1937). It is again sung by Porky himself in the ironically titled 1942 cartoon, My Favorite Duck, in which Porky is tormented by Daffy Duck while on a camping trip. It well fits Porky's speech impediment — which is especially noticeable with M's and B's. Daffy, meanwhile, keeps singing "Blues in the Night (My Mama Done Tol' Me)". At one point, Porky unconsciously starts to sing Daffy's number, then stops, looks into the camera with a "Harumph!" and returns to his stuttering version of "Moonlight Bay.". The song was also used in another Porky cartoon, entitled "Trap Happy Porky" (1945), and it was sung by a quintet of drunk cats (one of them was playing the piano).
- It is also sung by Sylvester the Cat in the 1948 cartoon Back Alley Oproar.
- Michigan J. Frog sings the chorus in Another Froggy Evening.
- The song was featured in the films On Moonlight Bay (1951) and By the Light of the Silvery Moon (1953), performed by Leon Ames, Gordon MacRae, Doris Day.
- The tune prominently featured in Louis Malle's Pretty Baby (1978), which won an Academy Award for Original Music Score in the "Adaptation Score" category.
- On Season 2, Episode 3 of Taxi, Louie DePalma (Danny DeVito) sings Moonlight Bay while under the influence of whatever "Reverend" Jim Ignatowski (Christopher Lloyd) has slipped into his coffee. It is part of an effort by the cabbies to get Louie to hire Jim at the cab company, something he has refused to do. Louie's final words, just before drifting off, are, "Everyone works on Moonlight Bay".
- It is revealed in episode 7 of Family Guy that Brian Griffin can simultaneously sing all four parts of four-part harmony. In a flashback scene, Brian sings “Moonlight Bay.”
- It is sung several times in Nickelodeon's Hey Arnold.
- A spoof of this song was made by The Beatles with Morecambe and Wise. It is found on Anthology 1.
- Peter O'Toole sings it in "The Rainbow Thief"(1990)
- A 1951 hit for father and son Bing Crosby and Gary Crosby