AN ENCORE MUSICAL MUSING FOR THESE POLITICAL TIMES–“IT’S A SIN TO TELL A LIE”

For those of us following the news these days, a lot of reporters and commentators have written and opined on just who might find themselves facing the possibility of some form of formal chastisement for their misdeeds or peccadillos. However, gentle readers, I am, of course, not one to gaze too long into the roiling ink and pixel pots. Still, I am reminded of a couple of apropos musical links and, hence, another (apolitical, OF COURSE!) musical musing.

Talk about an earworm!  Here is another one of those songs from our songbooks that has been around forever and recorded by just about everyone. 

A note, gentle readers. After all of my postings over the past several years you should understand by now that to listen to one of the embedded YouTube videos, just click on the white triangle in the red box. Got it?

Moving on, “It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie” is a popular song written in 1936 by one Billy Mayhew.  It began its recording odyssey with several dance bands . . .

. . . and a couple of years later was jazzed
up and popularized by Fats Waller. 

The Ink Spots made this one of their standards.

Originally written as a waltz, Waller made it a fast jazz tune, and—in the 1950s—it began being played by almost everyone in a fast four/four tempo.

To me, however, it’s a bluesy, message tune—what I often call a “whiskey and cigarette” song—best heard in a darkish, smallish, oldish place with a piano, bass, and singer.  Maybe just a scratchy old 78 RPM disk.  A fast four/four?  I don’t know; I’m a bit too old for that!  

Now here’s a version first recorded during World War II, a time of liaisons and partings and, I’m sure, promises made and broken.

And, of course, the ultimate jazz singer of the day.

To me, an intriguing part of the song’s backstory is the composer, Billy Mayhew. After a search on Google, Wikipedia, and my dozen or so books on the history of popular music, there is NO reference to be found other than his full name of William P. Mayhew—no biography, no obituary, no amusing anecdotes, no mention other than dozens of references to him as the composer of “It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie.”  It doesn’t look like he wrote anything else and no one out there in musical history land seems to have pursued his story.  Go figure.

Anyway, do you have an earworm yet?  If not, here’s one more!

So, in these heady days of “news” and “proclamations,” take heed to at least the title of our song . . .

And, STAY TUNED! And, oh yes! VOTE.