I’ll Be Seeing You – A Hugely Popular WWII Era Song About Distance Love – Couldn’t Be More Timely Today

Lyrics by Irving Kahal   Music by Sammy Fain

I’ll be seeing you in all the old familiar places
That this heart of mine embraces all day through
In that small cafe, the park across the way
The children’s carousel, the chestnut trees, the wishing well
I’ll be seeing you in every lovely summer’s day
In everything that’s light and gay
I’ll always think of you that way
I’ll find you in the morning’ sun
And when the night is new
I’ll be looking at the moon
But I’ll be seeing you
I’ll find you in the morning sun
And when the night is new
I’ll be looking at the moon
But I’ll be seeing you

This is not as dire as World II, right? In 1944, when this song was a number one hit by Bing Crosby; and in that same year when it was merely a big hit, by three other recording artists; and when Hollywood saw how many records  people were buying of this song, and they released a movie the following year called I’ll Be Seeing You – things were even scarier then than they are now.

When our boys were fighting in the Pacific and Europe, you couldn’t set up Zoom Conference with them; and even you could, that wouldn’t remove the fear, and too often the reality; that this could be the last communication you would ever have with them.

Not that Life in the Time of Coronavirus, is a bowl of cherries; as hundreds of millions of us remain hunkered in our homes, spending even more time than we usually do, in front of cellphones and computer screens, absorbed by HD images (which are really just flickering lights) and listening to sounds that come very close to imitating those of our parents and kids. But we don’t know when we’re going to be able to hug them again. 

Transcribed with the permission of Bob Hecht, from his Podcast, The Joys of Jazz LISTEN!

During World War II there were a number of songs that seemed to capture the ethos of the time. One of the most significant and popular was “I’ll Be Seeing You,” famously recorded by Bing Crosby, Billie Holiday, Jo Stafford and many others. The song became a virtual anthem of the war, embodying as it did, the reality of wartime separations and loss.

This is the story of a song that began its life as just another poignant ballad of love and loss was largely forgotten, and then came roaring back to life.

And the guy who wrote the words to that song would never know that it not only became a huge hit, but the virtual anthem of a wartime generation. Partings were a fact of wartime life. Many of those partings were for years, though many were forever, with nearly a million American and British lives lost.

Bob Hecht’s interviews and insights, with and about great jazz artists, are mesmorizing. Check out more of them out here.

It’s hard to imagine a song more perfect for the time, even though it wasn’t written with a war in mind, at all. For during WWII there was a lot of saying goodbye. After all, between the Allied forces of America and Britain alone, there were some 20 million people who served in the war. Soldiers and civilians alike, became accustomed to goodbyes. Partings were a fact of wartime life. Many of those partings were for years, though many were forever, with nearly a million American and British lives lost.

“I’ll Be Seeing You” became emblematic of such separations. This sentimental ballad with its appealing and sing-able melody, and its straight-forward relatable lyrics, resonated with anyone who had either lost someone, or who was waiting and hoping to see them again.

So how did the song happen? Well it came from the songwriting team of Sammy Fain, who wrote the music and Irving Kahle, who wrote the words.

Fain and Kayle had many hits together during their 17 year collaboration, dating back to 1925; including “I Can Dream, Can’t I?” and “Let A Smile Be Your Umbrella.”

They wrote “I’ll Be Seeing You” in 1938 for a Broadway musical comedy called “Right This Way.” But the show was a flop, lasting for only 15 performances. Sammy Fain once joked that a lot of theater-goers at those 15 shows, never even stuck around for the whole show. “Where’s the exit?”, Fain asked sarcastically. Well, Right This Way.

Then in 1943, the forgotten song was unexpectedly rescued from obscurity when someone must have realized the timeliness of its sentiment for the universal plight of wartime separations. Everyone big recorded it. Bing Crosby had one of the biggest hits with the song, as did Jo Stafford, Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra.

But lyricist Kahle never knew of the song’s surprising late success. He had died the year before its resuscitation, at only 38, of a heart attack.

“I’ll Be Seeing You” differed from earlier Tin Pan Alley songs about loss and separation. It wasn’t about rejection by one’s beloved, about being dumped. It was a universal song about the power of love transcending time and distance.

And it wasn’t only lovers who related to the song. It was also meaningful to mothers separated from their sons and daughters; and to children separated from their parents.

In a World War II memoir, there’s the story of a young girl desperately missing her father. She writes, “the line ‘I’ll be looking at the moon, but I’ll be seeing you,’ had a profound effect on me. It was amazing to be able to look at the moon, and realize that all those miles away, he was able to look at the same moon.”

The song didn’t have that same salutary effect on everyone, however. Jazz critic Francis Davis spoke about that in an interview. “I grew up in a home where my mother had lost her brother in World War II,” Davis said. “We had my grandmother in the house as well. There were certain songs that we had to turn off when they came on the radio, because they just reminded my grandmother in particular, too much of her son. One of them was ‘I’ll Be Seeing You.’”

For soldiers during the war, the song was virtually ever present. One soldier recalls overhearing his buddy on the phone to his girlfriend. He was singing to her “I’ll Be Seeing You,” but he changed the words to “I’ll be squeezing you in all the old familiar places.”

But another soldier recalls hearing the song in the midst of the allied invasion of Sicily. “When we hit the beach,” he remembered, “we were all hit, the medics couldn’t get to us. I could hear a wounded soldier nearby singing ‘I’ll be seeing you.’ And then he stopped. I had listened to him die.”

Lyricist Irving Kahle had considered “I’ll Be Seeing You,” the greatest song he had ever written. And he’d often expressed his disappointment that it hadn’t become a hit – at least not during his lifetime. He would surely have appreciated knowing what his words came to represent, and what the song meant to so many millions of people, during very difficult times.

And all it took for the song to catch on was the complete catastrophic upending of the world order, in which parting became a normal fact of life for so many; and for which there just happened to be a song already made; a song that managed to distill the mood of an entire era.

At Kahle’s funeral, his longtime songwriting partner, Sammy Fain, arranged to have a special piece of music played during the service. Of course, that was “I’ll Be Seeing You.”

But our last words go to songwriter Sammy Kahn, who once said, “You know, old songwriters never really die, because their songs keep them alive, forever.

Dame Vera Lynn, who died June 18, 2020 at the age of 103, recorded this version of “I’ll Be Seeing You.”

Was composer Sammy Fain slightly influenced by Gustav Mahler (Symphony 3, 6th movement)?

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