Everyday You Meet Quite A Few...

Critic Wilfrid Sheed’s latest book, “The House That George Built,” carries us through the golden years of Tin Pan Alley, with each chapter concentrating (more or less) on an individual composer like Gershwin, Berlin, Carmichael and the best of the rest. In his better moments, the prose brings each mentioned song to mind and I kept stopping the read so I could give a listen to the tunes about which he was talking.

However, it’s not for the music that I put these words down. In his chapter “Jimmy Van Heusen: On the Radio with Bing and Frank” Sheed describes how tunesmith Van Heusen ("Swinging on a Star," "Moonlight Becomes You," "All the Way," "Call Me Irresponsible" to name a few) spent his war years:

"Four days in a row, up at four A.M. to test-fly new Lockheed warplanes until noon, under the name of Chester Babcock; then off to Paramount to write songs for the rest of the day as his other self, Jimmy Van Heusen; then a two-and-a-half-day break, during which he only had to get up whenever the studio did, to write songs all day this time. Then back to Go, and you can sleep as long as you like when the war is over, buddy."

"What twenty-first-century sensibilities might find harder to grasp is not the deed but the cover-up. Imagine the glory at the Lockheed base if he ever so much as let one colleague know that he had recently written that song they were all humming, "Sunday, Monday, or Always"; and imagine the megaglory of tipping off Louella Parsons, the gossip queen, that you were not just another Hollywood draft dodger, the kind people hooted and whistled at in the street, but a hero on two fronts, the entertainment one as well as the real one, in which he was entrusting his life again and again to the skills of Rosie the Riveter between songs. Ronald Reagan would have told Ms. Parsons even if he hadn't done it, as an inspirational story. But the hell with it. Jimmy was not the inspirational type, and besides, he was only a great songwriter, not a minor movie star, so he mightn't even have inspired anyone that much. And finally, of course, there was his job at Paramount to worry about. No doubt his bosses would have crooned his praises in public -- but who wants to make movies with a guy who might go down in flames any minute, and hold up your next picture? Who did this guy think he was anyway? Joan of Arc?"

"In retrospect, the myriad changes of sensibility that occur in this country seem like earthquakes that no one notices at the moment they occur. In the 1920s, a writer could genuinely think of himself, and be thought of, as a star. In the thirties and forties, he was just a working stiff to all concerned. From the 1990s until today, a guy with Van Heusen's war record would undoubtedly have sold the book and movie rights and established his own website as the Singing Test Pilot or the FlyingTroubador.com In the 1940s the worst thing that you could be was a hotshot or a big deal. "What are you?" as the kids used to say. "A wise guy or Boy Scout?" To this, there was no correct answer except to put up our dukes and pray."

Sheed occasionally falls prey to generalities and self-contradictions -- you can see a couple of them in the above-example. What all this brings up to my mind, to the background swing of Dean Martin leering "Ain't That A Kick In the Head" (another Van Heusen tune): Are there still those out there doing good because it is the right thing to do? Are there still those who do the right thing, not because the deed means some reward -- and by 'reward' I mean not just money, but also glory and an improved self-esteem -- for the do-gooder?

The Lone Ranger would ride off into the sunset without waiting for thanks; Superman would say no thanks were necessary because "it's what I'm here for." The more-common cliché for a mask these days, though is "if gangland crooks knew my real identity they would try for revenge against me through my friends and family." I like the more noble idea: if no one knows who you are when you do the good deed then it's a strictly-anonymous affair, without reward of any kind. Only good for goodness' sake.

"All the monkeys aren't at the zoo," goes Van Heusen's Swinging On A Star, "every day you meet quite a few..." Like the monkeys, perhaps there are heroes met every day as well -- subtly working their good through the world -- and we're just too slow or cynical to notice them until our thanks are too late to matter...