Mack Gordon, songwriter: reference sources (web and print); selected songs; recordings, videos; miscellany

Having emigrated from Warsaw as a child with his parents, Mack Gordon began his show business career as a singing comic in vaudeville and minstrel shows. By 1929 he was in Hollywood writing lyrics for movie songs. He partnered with numerous composers but his two extended collaborations were with the Englishman Harry Revel during the thirties and the Italian-American Brooklynite Harry Warren starting in the forties. Of the Gordon songs included in the Cafe Songbook Catalog of The Great American Songbook(See list below.) fourteen were written with Warren and only one with Revel, making it clear that he rose to the heights of his art with the latter composer. Gordon wrote a few songs for Broadway shows, but most of his work was for Twentieth Century Fox in Hollywood. He received nine nominations for the the best original song Oscar winning it once, for "You'll Never Know," in 1943.

Gary Marmorstein compares two of Harry Warren's writng partners, Al Dubin who wrote with Warren at Warner's until personal problems forced the lyricist out of the picture, and Gordon who was subsequently paired with Warren upon the composer's arrival at Twentieth Century Fox in 1940:

Gordon's lyrics were less propulsive than Dubin's and a touch more poetic. Where Dubin rhymed for dance, Gordon rhymed for emotional expressiveness. Dubin's words evoked the American streets, the more urban the better, where romance was sex and sex was bawdy; Gordon's words evoked a more interior and tender locale, even when actual places like Chattanooga or Kalamazoo were par of the scheme. Gordon's most characteristic lyrics--to Warren's tunes, anyway--stated a romantic or pre-romantic condition in the first line or two, then amplified that condition through the balance of the song: " I Know Why (And So Do You; You'll Never Know (How Much I Care) "; " The More I See You "; and so on. Other lyricists listened and learned. Sammy Cahn , hardly prone to praise his rivals, said, "I found the work of Mack Gordon very attractive to my ear." Of course Harry Warren's music helped make it attractive (Marmorstein, pp. 216-217) .

Marmorstein also illustrates another arrow Gordon drew from his quiver to further his and Warren's fortunes at Fox. Referring to the Warren-Gordon songs mentioned above plus "I Had the Craziest Dream," he writes,

Each of these great songs had had to be auditioned for [Daryl] Zanuck [then head of Twentieth Century Fox for whose movies they were written], who considered himself a pop music expert. While Warren played piano, Gordon would sing, adding a trombone chorus with his voice. "That sonofabitch could sell me anything," Zanuck said of Gordon.

Cafe Songbook Music-Video Cabinet: Mack Gordon

An episode of The Railroad Hour (a radio show --this episode from August 15, 1949) that dramatizes the relationship between established lyricist Mack Gordon and a once novitiate composer, Josef Myrow -- with narration and performance by Gordon MacRae. Although fifteen Mack Gordon songs are included in the Cafe Songbook Catalog, there is only one, "You Make Me Feel So Young," written with Josef Myrow'

Toward the end of the show, Gordon demonstrates his talent as a singer that goes back to his early days when he was in vaudeville. He sings his own song, "It Happens Every Spring." Not bad either.

• At Last
• Chattanooga Choo Choo
• I Had the Craziest Dream
• I Know Why (and So Do You)
• Mam'selle
• The More I See You
• My Heart Tells Me
• Stay as Sweet as You Are
• There Will Never Be Another You
• There's a Lull in My Life
• This Is Always
• Time On My Hands (and you in my arms)
• You Hit the Spot
• You Make Me Feel So Young
• You'll Never Know

Research Resources: Mack Gordon

• AllMusic.com (overview, compositions, credits)
• Amazon (publications by and about, recordings, videos, sheet music, etc.)
• ClassicMovieMusicals.com (song list with each song linked to description of movie in which it appeared)
• DBOPM (Database Of Popular Music: song list; awards; hit songs; co-writers)
• Discogs.com (songwriting and arranging credits)
• Michael Feinstein's American Songbook (bio., photos, back stories, songs)
• Indiana University Sheet Music Collection (In Harmony): Mack gordon
• Internet Broadway Database (Broadway productions and song credits)
• Internet Movie Database (brief biography, filmography, movie song credits)
• New York Public Library (catalog entries for books, personal papers, recordings, scores, etc.)
• The New York Times (articles about the songwriter)
• Songwriters Hall of Fame (biography and song list)
• Wikipedia (Mack Gordon article)
• Tony Thomas (with forward by Bing Crosby)
  Harry Warren and the Hollywood Musical,
  Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press, 1975 (multiple Mack Gordon references).
• ASCAP Biographical Dictionary, New York: American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, Cattell/Bowker, Fourth edition, 1980 (dates, collaborators, shows/movies, songs, etc., entry pp. 193-194)
• Roy Hemming, The Melody Lingers On: The Great Songwriters and Their Movie Musicals, New York: Newmarket Press, 1986. (pp. 280-284 plus multiple other references).
• David Ewen. American Songwriters, An H. W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary. New York: The H. W. Wilson Co., 1987 (includes 146 bios of composers and lyricists). -- a wide selection of used copies is available at abebooks.com (entry pp. 303-306) -- entry with Harry Revel.
• Gary Marmorstein, Hollywood Rhapsody: Movie Music and Its Makers, 1900-1975,
  New York: Schirmer Books, 1997 (discussion . . . pp. 214-218 and others).
• Robert Gottlieb and Robert Kimball (Eds.), Reading Lyrics, New York: Pantheon Books, 2000 (pp. 367-372, includes brief bio and lyrics for twelve songs).
• William Zinsser. Easy to Remember The Great American Songwriters and Their Songs. Jaffrey, New Hampshire: David R. Godine, 2001 (pp. 139-142 and 155).
• Ken Bloom. The American Songbook, The Singers, The Songwriters and the Songs. New York: Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers, 2005 (entry--p. 238 and others).
• Wilfred Sheed, The House That George Built: With a Little Help from Irving, Cole, and a Crew of About Fifty, New York: Random House, 2007 (paperback edition, 2008), pp. 217-219 and others, (hard cover edition)
• Thomas S. Hischak. The Oxford Companion to the American Musical: Theatre, Film, and Television. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008 (entry--p. 297).
• Tribute to Warren and Gordon/"Walking on Air": ednayarkspay
• When I'm with You: Peter Mintun, petermintunmusic
• Glenn Miller, "People like You and Me": FyAthyRio69
• The Railroad Hour: LoveTheOConnor

Notes

• Gary Marmorstein Hollywood Rhapsody: Movie Music and Its Makers, 1900-1975 , New York: Schirmer Books, 1997
• Did You Ever See a Dream Walking? The Songs of Harry Revel & Mack Gordon
• Twenty-Five songs of Revel and Gordon various artists CD 2010

Cite this page: Mack Gordon, songwriter: reference sources (web and print); selected songs; recordings, videos; miscellany, Cafe Songbook, https://greatamericansongbook.net/pages/songwriters/g_sws/gordon_mack.html