The Last Time I Saw Paris

Tin Pan Alley always keeps only a jump behind the international situation. The preoccupation of songwriters with U. S. patriotism put three flag-waving songs on Variety's best-selling list.* The assault on England has boosted A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square to No. 3 on the list. But the fall of France has inspired the best tune: The Last Time I Saw Paris, by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II. Not yet a bestseller, this song was well on its way last week. Kate Smith had had exclusive radio rights to it for six weeks. There were half a dozen records of it, of which silky-voiced Hildegarde's (Decca) best captured its nostalgia for the boulevards :

The last time I saw Paris, Her trees were dressed for spring, And lovers walked beneath those trees, And birds found songs to sing. . . . The last time I saw Paris, Her heart was warm and gay. No matter how they change her I'll remember her that way./-

For years, Lyricist Hammerstein has written show songs with Composer Kern (Show Boat, Sunny, Music in the Air). The Last Time I Saw Paris, said he last week, is the only song he ever wrote that was not written to order. It is also the first Kern-Hammerstein piece whose words were written before the music. It is a hit, said Mr. Hammerstein, because "everyone feels that way about Paris, even the people who've never been there."

*God Bless America; Shout, I Am an American; He's My Uncle. /-Copyright 1940 by Chappell & Co. Inc., New York City.

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