"A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square": Song History, Commentary, Discography, Performances on Video

"A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square"

Although every copy of the sheet music we have seen gives credit only to Manning Sherwin (music) and Eric Maschwitz--aka Holt Marvell--(lyrics), there is no shortage of unsourced citations for the music credit being shared by Sherwin and Jack Strachey.

That a song written by Brits about London has become a standard in America, recorded by so many American singers of The Songbook, such as Kate Smith, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Carmen McRae and many others accounts for its inclusion in the Cafe Songbook Catalog of The Great American Songbook.

"A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley* Square" was formally introduced by Judy Campbell in Eric Maschwitz's New Faces Revue in London in April, 1940 -- although according to Wikipedia, it was written in 1939 in the French fishing village of Le Lavando and premiered in a bar there by lyricist Maschwitz. Whether this account is true or not the song quickly became a wartime favorite in Britain and, after Pearl Harbor, in The States owing to its powerful evocation of feelings of separation and longing for a happier time. More precisely the song conjures a romantic nostalgia recalling a London setting in which "true lovers [could] meet in Mayfair" and "hear the songbirds sing" as an alternative to the sounds of the Battle of Dunkirk and then The Blitz, both of which followed Campbell's introduction in short order.

Judy Campbell performs "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" in 2002, 62 years after she introduced it in April, 1940,
just before the London Blitz.

Will Friedwald, Sinatra! The Song Is You A Singer's Art, New York: Scribners, 1995.
Da Capo Press paperback edition
(shown above) 1997

**Other examples of songs in The Cafe Songbook catalog by songwriters who are not American are "These Foolish Things" (also by Maschwitz, Sherwin and Strachey); "Mack the Knife" and "September Song" (music by Kurt Weill, German, who came to the U.S. in 1935, seven years after he wrote "Mack the Knife" and three years before "September Song").

**Of course Fred Astaire and Adele Astaire, his sister and longtime co-star, spent much time in the UK and were widely known there both as performers and figures in society. Adele gave up show business when she married into the British aristocracy. Also, Fred's movies with Ginger Rodgers had all been seen in Great Britain by the time "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" had been written.

A song written by British songwriters and introduced in a British revue by a British singer may need an explanation as to why it should be included in The Great American Songbook.** As Thomas Hischak points out, the song became popular in America because it evoked the same kinds of feelings of sadness brought about by wartime separation as it had in Britain, even though most Americans had no idea about the London square where the song is set (Hischak, p. 264).

"A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" was written in the same style as American popular songs from what later became known as The Great American Songbook, and it was sung and played by the most well-known American singers and bands. Such prototypically American recording artists as Glenn Miller, Guy Lombardo and Sammy Kaye made it popular and as a result it was brought to "Your Hit Parade, a radio show listened to by millions of Americans every week. The song fit so well the feelings and tastes of Americans that very quickly it was transformed into something American even though its imagery is so solidly English. It helped, of course, that the verse, which opens with a reference to Mayfair, the London district where Berkeley Square is located, was dropped by almost all American singers:

When true lovers meet in Mayfair, so the legends tell, Songbirds sing.

The very English first lines of the refrain, which were sung by American artists from the big band singers of the forties to the likes Anita O'Day, Nat King Cole, Sinatra, etc. in the fifties and after was not a deterrent to Americans making it their own:

That certain night, The Night we met, There was magic abroad in the air. There were angels dining at the Ritz, And a Nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.

Even lyricist Maschwitz tipped his hat to the American Songbook, first when he compares the lightness of the lovers' homeward step after their romance in the Square to the "dancing feet of Astaire,*** and again when he alludes to the 1935 Irving Berlin song, "Cheek to Cheek," introduced by Fred in the movie Top Hat:

This heart of mine Beat loud and fast Like a merry-go-round in a fair, For we were dancing cheek to cheek And a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.

More than twenty years later in 1962, when Maschwitz heard that Frank Sinatra was planning on recording his "Nightingale," for the album Sinatra Sings Great Songs from Great Britain, he was so thrilled he called Sinatra's Reprise UK producer Alan Freeman and said, "For God's sake make sure this song ("Nightingale") gets in. It would be the crowning of my career to have Sinatra record one of my songs!" (Will Friedwald reports in his book, Sinatra: The Song is You that "Maschwitz neglected to tell Freeman about Sinatra's Columbia and Capitol recordings of "[These] Foolish Things" -- another Maschwitz/Strachey collaboration -- apparently to make a stronger impression and improve his later song's chances (Friedwald, p. 394, hardcover Ed.).

Apparently Thomas Hischak also feels the pull of the American side of "Nightingale" because he includes it in his Tin Pan Alley Song Encyclopedia, the Alley having been the quintessentially American epicenter of popular song for several decades of the early twentieth century.

Sinatra's Recording Session for
"A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" recorded for the album
Great Songs from Great Britain (1962)
(based on the account given by Charles L. Granata
in his book Sessions with Sinatra.)

Songs from Great Britain is Sinatra's only album to be recorded outside the U.S., and it came about at the singer's request. As he tells a Paris audience during the tour that preceded the recording sessions of June, 1962, London is his favorite town, and before he left The States for the tour he knew he wanted to record an album there an had arranged to do one that included only British songs. The arrangements would also be British in that the arranger Robert Farnum was a local boy.

The album's producer was Alan Freeman, head of the Reprise London office, and lyricist Eric Maschwitz was only one of many songwriters who called him to plead for their songs to be included on the album, knowing what a Sinatra recording could do for them. Freeman told Maschwitz that "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" "would stand a great chance [of being included]," and sent the request on to Sinatra. (Charles Granata, The Sinatra Sessions, p. 163).

The recording sessions for Great Songs from Great Britain were stressful not only because the surroundings were completely new to Sinatra and the studio was over capacity with "special" guests, but because the singer had just finished an extraordinarily demanding world tour and was nearing the end of his vocal rope. His voice was far from its peak, he was exhausted and he knew it. Everybody from the musicians to the studio crew was tense. On the very first song, "If I Had You," of all things the piano, the only one available, broke down. Instead of blowing up as he sometimes did, Sinatra, as he was more often inclined, used his ability to calm things down and just told his piano player Bill Miller to use the celeste. It worked and the tension was broken.

"A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" came up during the second session, June 13, 1962, and although it only required two takes, it was the one song on which Sinatra wanted an intercut made. He rarely did this preferring that his tracks be integral live performances instead of the composites made possible after the beginning of the taping era. As Granata explains it, "If there were minor problems with a small section of a recording, the short passage would be rerecorded and intercut (spliced) into the master take in the appropriate place." Freeman remembered that "Frank loved Harry Roche's trombone solo." On the tapes you can hear Sinatra's instructions, revealing his expertise in both the musical and technical aspects of the process: "'Intercut, using bar fifty-two on out for me . . . the trombone solo is excellent, so let's save that'." Freeman noted that this was "'the first time in two night's work that Frank actually came into the control room during the session. He came in to tell the engineer to make the splice right there, on the spot . . . very frightening!'" The young and very nervous engineer fulfilled Sinatra's request successfully and everybody "breathed a sigh of relief."

Years later, producer Freeman noted, "Personally, I think that's the song ["A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square"] that came out best on the album."

Click here to read the lyrics for "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square"
as sung by Tony Bennett on the album Perfectly Frank.

Neither Bennett on the above album nor Sinatra on Great Songs from Great Britain include the verse to the song, which uses Berkeley Square and its London neighborhood, Mayfair, to introduce a magical setting that can cast a spell on true lovers who meet there: Winter turns to spring, Every winding street in Mayfair falls beneath the spell. I know such enchantment can be, Cause it happened one evening to me. The refrain then carries on by elaborating on "That certain night, / The Night we Met" when the most magical thing of all was that "A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square." To hear the full verse listen to Mel Tormé on the Cafe Songbook Main Stage , the Vera Lynn version in the Cafe Songbook Record/Video cabinet , or the Karen Akers version.

• Mel Tormé: DeweyMaxx
• Judy Campbell: catherinenicolson
• Frank Sinatra: Deuk1
• Manhattan Transfer: AniasAndDemari
• Karen Oberlin: karenoberlin
• Harry Allen: kazzcriss2

Notes

• Other songs written for New Faces (1940) currently included in the Cafe Songbook Catalog of The Great American Songbook : none.
• For a photo of Strachey at piano working with Maschwitz, see the blog site Songbook .
• Thomas Hischak, The Tin Pan Alley Song Encyclopedia , Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 2002
• "Berkeley" is pronounced "Barkley."
• (all quotations and sourcing from Granata, pp. 163-167) .
• The complete, authoritative lyrics for"A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" can be found in:

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