I don’t mean to brag (really, I don’t) but I know hundreds–probably thousands–of old songs. It comes from a lifetime of non-stop listening to and playing of the music of the 1920s-50s and watching way too many musicals. So it’s a genuine surprise when I stumble across a song I don’t know. To compound things, I’ve never even heard of the movie it came from. As a result I’ve become a bit obsessed over the past few days with a 1937 song called ‘Cause My Baby Says It’s So’, written by Harry Warren and Al Dubin for a Dick Powell Warner Brothers musical with the incredibly stupid title ‘The Singing Marine’. Dubin’s nifty lyric and Warren’s impish melody are infectious. The plot line of the movie is so insipid and silly that I almost want to watch it (or fast forward through it more likely). I’ve posted two versions of the song–the Dick Powell original (below) and the great Bunny Berigan’s cover (above). I posted the Berigan recording first since I have a feeling many of you won’t take the time to listen to two versions and I’d rather you give the better one a chance–if for no other reason so that you don’t lose faith in my taste in such matters. I love Berigan’s vocals and there are too few of them on record. His famous hit vocal is, of course, ‘I Can’t Get Started’ but the others tend more to the 30s novelty side, with titles like ‘Mama I Want To Make Rhythm’ and the like. His voice has a sly, velvety sound–a little like early Mel Torme–and his jazz phrasing is a definite step above Powells much squarer delivery of the song. Don’t get me wrong. I make no great claims for this song–it’s not like I discovered another ‘Body and Soul’ buried deep in the vaults in a justly forgotten movie. But I tend toward obsessive pursuits and for whatever reason this little ditty is this week’s…er, pursuit. Here’s the lyric:

White is black and black is white for no good reason that I know—only cause my baby says it’s so.

Night is day and day is night the moon at noon is all aglow–just because my baby says it’s so.

I caught her kissing someone else to my confusion…she said what I saw was an optical illusion…

I was wrong and she was right–as I said long ago–Thats because my baby says it’s so!