ASCAP Celebrates the Centennial of Legendary Songwriter Carl Sigman

An appreciation by his son Michael Sigman

Many a tear has to fall but it's all in the game...

Carl Sigman

September 24th was the centennial birthday of ASCAP songwriter and inaugural Songwriters Hall of Fame member Carl Sigman (1909-2000), who wrote nearly a thousand songs in a career that spanned seven decades. His standards include "It's All In The Game," "(Where Do I Begin) Love Story," "Ebb Tide," "What Now, My Love," "Enjoy Yourself (It's Later Than You Think)," "Answer Me, My Love," "Crazy He Calls Me," "All Too Soon," "I Could Have Told You," "Buona Sera" and "Arrivederci, Roma." His eldest son Michael offers these reminiscences of a songwriter's life well lived.

If George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter and Stephen Sondheim are among the songwriting all-stars whose songs could only have been written by them, my dad is the utility player who could slip into any position at a moment's notice. In addition to his vast catalogue of pop tunes, he collaborated with jazz greats Duke Ellington ("All Too Soon") and Tad Dameron ("If You Could See Me Now"), added lyrics to the vintage ragtime tunes "Fidgety Feet," "Panama" and "Sensation," wrote folk songs for Burl Ives --"River Of Smoke," "(O-Lee-O) The Bachelor's Life" -- and even came up with a protest song for lefty activist Tom Glazer, "Money In The Pocket."

Johnny Mercer lived down the street from my dad in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, and became his mentor. Carl's first published song, 1937's "Just Remember," was a collaboration with Mercer. Returning the favor, Carl gave Johnny the famous line "Or am I breathing music into ev'ry word" for the immortal "And The Angels Sing."

As part of his contribution to World War II, Sgt. Sigman wrote "All-American Soldier," still the theme song of the 82nd Airborne Division.

In 1947, Carl had the top two songs on "Your Hit Parade." Number One was Vaughn Monroe's "Ballerina," for which Carl wrote the melody (Bob Russell contributed the lyric), and at least a half dozen of his friends swore he composed it on their pianos. Number Two was "Civilization (Bongo Bongo Bongo)" by Danny Kaye and the Andrews Sisters, one of my dad's many collaborations with Bob Hilliard.

Hilliard was quite a character and a very competitive guy. Along the walk down Seventh Avenue to the Brill Building, it was impossible to avoid the sounds of the top hits of the day, as record stores like Whirling Disk lured customers by blasting the songs out their front doors. Hilliard, upon hearing the No. 1 "Ballerina" instead of his runner-up "Civilization," would mutter, "I spit on those stores." The ubiquitous "gob of talent," as my dad used to call Hilliard, was also present when Carl proposed to Terry and, literally not wanting to miss a beat, accompanied the newlyweds on their honeymoon train trip to California.

If it weren't for the great Louis Prima, I -- and my brothers Jeff and Randy -- would never have been born. In 1948 Carl married Louis's gal Friday, Eleanor (Terry) Berkowitz, whom he met in the Brill Building while writing songs for Louis.

My dad's biggest hit -- "It's All In The Game" -- began as classical violin solo composed by Charles Dawes, making it the only No. 1 song -- Tommy Edwards rode it to the top of the charts for six weeks in 1958 -- to have been co-written by a vice president of the United States. (Dawes served under Calvin Coolidge.) It's also been a country smash for Merle Haggard, an r&b hit for the Four Tops and a staple of Van Morrison's live show for many years. Demonstrating that you can't keep a good standard down, it's recently been recorded by UB40, Britney Spears and Rod Stewart.

My father never "went to work." Instead, the meditative calm of the golf course often served as his muse. From a very young age I'd reply to the question, "What does your father do?" with, "He plays golf." If someone asked what he did in the winter, I'd say, "He bowls."

"Ebb Tide" was Carl's personal favorite of all his songs. In his memoir Chronicles Bob Dylan writes, "I used to play the phenomenal 'Ebb Tide' by Frank Sinatra a lot and it had never failed to fill me with awe. The lyrics were so mystifying and stupendous. When Frank sang that song, I could hear everything in his voice -- death, God and the universe, everything." I liked it too: when Phil Spector's wall-of-sound treatment of the tune propelled the Righteous Brothers' version to the Top 5 in 1965, my high school social life turned a corner: Several cheerleaders actually became aware of my existence.

Deep in the Beatles' vaults, reliable sources say, is a 33-second cover of Carl's "You're My World," which Cilla Black (nee Priscilla White!) -- produced by "5th Beatle" George Martin -- scored with in 1964 at the height of Beatlemania.

My dad shunned publicity, sometimes with a deft assist from my mom. When I was around 10, a strange woman, daughter in tow, came to our door and asked if her little girl could watch my dad write a song. Mom's deadpan reply: "He does most of his writing on the john."

Carl never thought of himself as being remotely in the same league as the aforementioned songwriting legends. But another pretty good songwriter saw it differently. According to Ervin Drake ("I Believe," "It Was A Very Good Year" et al), "Sammy Cahn once told me that Carl Sigman was the only pop songwriter whose catalog he envied. And for good reason. Unlike men like Irving Berlin and Cole Porter who worked (except very early in their careers) exclusively by themselves, words and music, Carl was in the tradition of other great writers like Walter Donaldson, Richard Whiting and Johnny Mercer who sometimes wrote lyrics and other times music."

My father's self-deprecating wit served him, and us, well throughout his life. Two years before his death, as he was wheeled into a Long Island operating room for heart surgery, he quipped, "Aorta be in pictures."

- Michael Sigman