"Hit the Road to Dreamland": Song history, Commentary, Discography, Performances on Video

"Hit the Road to Dreamland"

Freddie Slack and His Orchestra / vocal by Margaret Whiting and The Mellowaires (Capitol 126): first charted 6/12/43, remained on charts for 2 weeks peaking at number 16.
(B side of "That Old Black Magic")

"Hit the Road to Dreamland" was written by Harold Arlen (music) and Johnny Mercer (lyrics) specifically for the score of the movie Star Spangled Rhythm and is introduced in the film by Mary Martin, Dick Powell and the Golden Gate Quartette.

The movie tells the story of Johnny Webster (Eddie Bracken), a sailor whose crew is given shore leave in the vacinity of Hollywood. Webster's father (Victor Moore) works as a security guard at Paramount studios and with the help of Polly Judson (Betty Hutton) a pretty telephone operator at the studio, has convinced young Webster that his father has moved up to a major executive/producer position at Paramount -- so he will be proud of his father while off fighting the war. When the crew is given leave, Johnny decides to bring a bunch of his buddies up to Hollywood to meet the stars (and starlets). He assumes his father can easily arrange it all for them. When Polly learns what the sailor-boys are up to she convinces Johnny's father that they have to somehow bring off the ruse, and the plot flows, with the expected successes and disasters, from their efforts.

As it happens, Paramount is in the proscess of making a musical and so we see the musical numbers written by Arlen and Mercer for Star Spangled Rhythm, which is a hollywood version of abackstager, preformed as rehearsals for or early takes of the final cut of the movie that is being made with the movie. Or, in some cases, we see them performed by Paramount stars as part of a benefit show they put on for a U. S. Navy crew. In the case of "Hit the Road to Dreamland" the director of the movie within the movie, Preston Sturgis (playing himself), is in a Paramount screening room waiting to view the dailies of Dick Powell, Mary Martin and the Golden Gate Quartette performing the song. Before the screening can begin Johnny and and his sailor friends wander into the screening room interrupting Sturgis who is mollified by Betty Hutton's character explaining that one of them is the son of a studio bigshot. Sturgis accepts the explanation and the screening begins. So the song has nothing to do with the plot of the movie per se but its performance is nevertheless cleverly integratedinto the story. Martin, Powell, and the Golden Gate Quartette do their bit for the movie being made within Star Spangled Rhythm, but are never seen again in the main film.

The performance itself is part of a scene in the dining car of a train. Martin and Powell are seated at a table and having finished their dinner and while enjoying some after dinner drinks sing "Hit the Road to Dreamland" to each other as a prelude to returning to their sleeping compartment. After the loitering couple does the verseand refrainkeeping the staff waiting a bit too long, a foursome of African-American servers perform a jivey, gospel counterpoint to the primary version of the song designed to ease the couple gently out so everyone can turn in. This version charms the sleepy diners who admit they "don't need a building to fall on [them]" to get the point. The scene closes with the melding of the two versions and all parties exiting the dining car. It's a fittingly creative frame for the introduction of a song that goes on to become an American standard.

Of course the quartet's music and lyrics (also written by Arlen and Mercer) are heard only in the movie. Subsequent recordings of "Hit the Road to Dreamland" by many performers over the years stick to the initial parts given to Powell and Martin, which are the only ones to apear in the published version.

The remainder of Star Spangled Rhythm follows the pattern of actors in the plot of the movie interacting with actual Paramount stars playing themselves -- and virually all of the stars on the Paramount lot appaear. The finale of the film comes when Bob Hope convinces all the stars to put on a live show as a benefit for the entire crew of Johnny's ship. The show is anchored by Bing Crosby singing Arlen and Mercer's attempt at equalling Irving Berlin in creating a patriotic anthem, which they call "Old Glory." They should leave that stuff to their colleague and friend. "Old Glory," now forgotten, is, though full of pomp and circumstance is no match for "God Bless America."

On the other hand a number of the songwriting team's creations written for the movie beside "Hit the Road to Dreamland" are terrific. The best are "A Sweater, a Sarong and a Peek-a-Boo Bang" sung by the trio of Paulette Goddard, Dorothy Lamour and Veronica Lake; "On the Swing Shift" sung and danced by Marjorie Reynolds, Betty Jane Rhodes and Dona Drake with an ensemble of singers and dancers as a tribute to women working in war plants (between the early and late shifts) while the men are away fighting; and the other great standard from the movie, "That Old Black Magic." Finally, "Sharp As a Tack" is a black cast number satirizing the fad of the zoot suit. It features Eddie "Rochester" Anderson in a zoot suit to die for. At the end of the number Rochester gives up this suit for a military uniform to fit in with the film's appeal to wartime patriotism. The movie also tries to advocate for racial equality in a couple of remarks by white stars during the course of the film but undercuts these slight forays by sustaining the idea of separation of the races in all of its numbers. Star Spangled Rhythm is a perfect example of a film that is far less memorable than the songs created for it.

In 1941 and 1942 Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer wrote the music and words respectively to two of their greatest standards: "Blues in the Night" for the movie of the same title and "That Old Black Magic" for the wartime Hollywood call to patriotism "Star Spangled Rhythm." For both movies they wrote second less well known standards: "This Time the Dream's on Me" for Blues in the Night and "Hit the Road to Dreamland" for Star Spangled Rhythm, both of which have long played second fiddle to their more glamorous siblings. Both big numbers, aside from being great songs, had a grandiose quality about them: one a tribute to the Blues and the place it holds in American culture; the other a paean to passion itself. Both second fiddlers shared an interest in jazzy and hip sounds in their music, lyrics and general sensibility. Mercer himself recognized the nature of the place of these songs in the concsciousness of their audience saying to Gene Lees in 1970, "We [meaning he and Arlen] have a lot of songs that are people's favorites that you don't hear much like "Hit the Road to Dreamland" [and] "This Time the Dream's on Me."

In "Hit the Road to Dreamland," Mercer "draws upon contemporary musician argot: 'Dig you in the land of nod,' 'knockedout moon . . . a-blowin' his top," and the title phrase" itself. It even features, in the movie, a very jazzy gospel rendition of the song by the Golden Gate Quartette, that foreshadows the rhythms of 21st century hip-hop. Even the fact that the quartet, though enormously accomplished and well known, are restricted to playing dining car waiters, cannot deny the musical freedom they embody. And the treatments given to the song by jazz singers and players over the following decades confirms its hip core (Jablonski, pp. 158-159).

For William Zinnser, "Hit the Road to Dreamland" is one example of how the strange bedfellows Arlen and Mercer, "from opposite ends of the cultural landscape, one Northeast Jewish, the other Southern Episcopalian . . . together created a distinctively American sound." In the case of this song the same American hipness reflected in Jablonski's comments above.

Very few recorded performances of "Hit the Road to Dreamland," including Jane Monheit's, include Arlen's and Mercer's verse , if for no other reason than it's a duet. Dick Powell and Mary Martin , of course, sing it to each other in Star Spangled Rhythm , for which the song was written. The verse, always an introduction to a song's refrain , here turns out to be a kind of adult version of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," which gets the couple ready for bed, but instead of wanting warm milk as an inducement to turning in, they order two more drinks: Dick Powell: Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle / Goes the star. Mary Martin: Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle / There you are. / Time for all good children to hit the hay. / Cock-a-doodle, doodle, doodle, / Soon will be another day. Powell: We should be on our way! Martin: [ yawns ] Powell: [ yawns ] Me, too. Waiter, two more, please. (from Kimball, et. al. The Complete Lyrics ) Meredith D'Ambrosio on her album of lullabies, perhaps more intended for children, does include the verse leaving off the request for "two more."

• Jane Monheit at the Rainbow Room: romasenatus
• Dick Powell, Mary Martin the Golden Gate Quartette: egallity
• Margaret Whiting:

Notes

• My Favorite Blonde / Star Spangled Rhythm Double Feature (DVD)
• Other songs written for Star Spangled Rhythm currently included in the Cafe Songbook Catalog of The Great American Songbook :
• 1. That Old Black Magic
• For a complete listing of songs used in the this movie, see IMDB Soundtrack .
• Betty Hutton's 1956 rendition of the song was featured on the soundtrack to L.A. Confidential (1997).
• "Hit the Road to Dreamland" on the charts:
• Source: Joel Whitburn, Pop Memories 1890-1954: The History of American Popular Music , 1986
• Star Spangled Rhythm : Original Soundtrack Recording [Vinyl LP] [Mono]
• Dick Powell, Mary Martin and The Golden Gate Quartette in Star Spangled Rhythm
• William Zinsser. Easy to Remember The Great American Songwriters and Their Songs . Jaffrey, New Hampshire: David R. Godine, 2001.
• Click here to read the lyrics for "Hit the Road to Dreamland," as sung by Jane Monheit.

Cite this page: "Hit the Road to Dreamland": Song history, Commentary, Discography, Performances on Video, Cafe Songbook, https://greatamericansongbook.net/pages/songs/h/hit_the_road_to_dreamland.html