As Time Goes By (song)
Encyclopedia
"As Time Goes By" is a song written by Herman Hupfeld
in 1931. It became most famous in 1942 when it was sung by the character Sam (Dooley Wilson
) in the movie Casablanca
. The song was voted #2 on the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Songs
special, commemorating the best songs in film. It was used as a fanfare for Warner Bros.
Pictures since 1998.
wrote "As Time Goes By" for the 1931 Broadway
musical Everybody's Welcome
. In the original show, it was sung by Frances Williams. It was recorded that year by several artists, including Rudy Vallee
.
The song was re-introduced in 1942 in the film Casablanca
, sung by Dooley Wilson
accompanied by pianist Elliot Carpenter and heard throughout the film as a leitmotif
. Wilson was unable to record a single of the song at the time due to a musicians' strike, leading the studio to re-issue Vallee's 1931 recording and giving Vallee a number one hit in 1942.
The song's famous opening line, "You must remember this...", is actually the start of the song's chorus as it was originally written and performed. Wilson did not sing the preceding verse in Casablanca, however, and most subsequent recordings have followed the film's lead in omitting it, leading to its being virtually unknown to most listeners.
In addition to the American Film Institute
including it as number two in their list of the 100 best songs in film, National Public Radio included it in their NPR 100, the 1999 list of the most important American musical works of the 20th century as compiled by their music editors.
Hupfeld lived his whole life in Montclair, New Jersey and spent many hours at a watering hole built in 1922 on Valley Road which was then part of Upper Montclair, now the Valley Regency. This location, previously known as the Robin Hood Inn, is the location where Hupfeld spent many hours at their piano and wrote several of his songs. A plaque located at the Valley Regency Catering Facility on Valley Road in Clifton, New Jersey commemorates the writing of the song by Hupfeld. Although the building was extensively renovated in 2000-2003, the owners, seeing the value of the plaque retained it and left it where it was, on the second floor of the facility.
, Engelbert Humperdinck
, Bing Crosby
, Perry Como
, Frank Sinatra
, Harry Nilsson
, Louis Armstrong
, Julio Iglesias
, Johnny Nash
(#43 on Billboard pop chart, 1959), Carly Simon
, Tony Bennett
, Arielle Dombasle
, Jane Monheit
, Rod Stewart
, Jimmy Durante
, Gal Costa
, Sammy Davis, Jr.
, Bryan Ferry
, Willie Nelson
, Vera Lynn
, Andy Williams
, Barry White
, The Duprees
, Johnnie Ray
, ZZ Top
, Amanda Lear
, Widespread Panic
and Johnny Mathis
. Notable versions include:
Herman Hupfeld
Herman Hupfeld was an American songwriter whose most notable composition was "As Time Goes By."-Biography:Hupfeld studied violin in Germany at 9. He was in the military during World War I, and he entertained camps and hospitals during World War II...
in 1931. It became most famous in 1942 when it was sung by the character Sam (Dooley Wilson
Dooley Wilson
Arthur "Dooley" Wilson was an American actor and singer. He was born in Tyler, Texas, and is remembered as piano-player "Sam" who sings "As Time Goes By" at the request of Ilsa Lund in the 1942 film, Casablanca - the Sam in the famously misremembered line "Play it again, Sam" -- a phrase which...
) in the movie Casablanca
Casablanca (film)
Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid, and featuring Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Dooley Wilson. Set during World War II, it focuses on a man torn between, in...
. The song was voted #2 on the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Songs
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Songs
Part of the AFI 100 Years… series, AFI's 100 Years…100 Songs is a list of the top 100 songs in American cinema. The list was unveiled by the American Film Institute June 22, 2004 in a CBS special hosted by John Travolta, who appeared in two films honored by the list, Saturday Night Fever and...
special, commemorating the best songs in film. It was used as a fanfare for Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
Pictures since 1998.
History
Herman HupfeldHerman Hupfeld
Herman Hupfeld was an American songwriter whose most notable composition was "As Time Goes By."-Biography:Hupfeld studied violin in Germany at 9. He was in the military during World War I, and he entertained camps and hospitals during World War II...
wrote "As Time Goes By" for the 1931 Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
musical Everybody's Welcome
Everybody's Welcome
Everybody's Welcome is a musical comedy with a book by Lambert Carroll, lyrics by Irving Kahal, and music by Sammy Fain. The musical has two acts and a prologue. The story is based on "Up Pops the Devil" by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett....
. In the original show, it was sung by Frances Williams. It was recorded that year by several artists, including Rudy Vallee
Rudy Vallée
Rudy Vallée was an American singer, actor, bandleader, and entertainer.-Early life:Born Hubert Prior Vallée in Island Pond, Vermont, the son of Charles Alphonse and Catherine Lynch Vallée...
.
The song was re-introduced in 1942 in the film Casablanca
Casablanca (film)
Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid, and featuring Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Dooley Wilson. Set during World War II, it focuses on a man torn between, in...
, sung by Dooley Wilson
Dooley Wilson
Arthur "Dooley" Wilson was an American actor and singer. He was born in Tyler, Texas, and is remembered as piano-player "Sam" who sings "As Time Goes By" at the request of Ilsa Lund in the 1942 film, Casablanca - the Sam in the famously misremembered line "Play it again, Sam" -- a phrase which...
accompanied by pianist Elliot Carpenter and heard throughout the film as a leitmotif
Leitmotif
A leitmotif , sometimes written leit-motif, is a musical term , referring to a recurring theme, associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It is closely related to the musical idea of idée fixe...
. Wilson was unable to record a single of the song at the time due to a musicians' strike, leading the studio to re-issue Vallee's 1931 recording and giving Vallee a number one hit in 1942.
The song's famous opening line, "You must remember this...", is actually the start of the song's chorus as it was originally written and performed. Wilson did not sing the preceding verse in Casablanca, however, and most subsequent recordings have followed the film's lead in omitting it, leading to its being virtually unknown to most listeners.
In addition to the American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
including it as number two in their list of the 100 best songs in film, National Public Radio included it in their NPR 100, the 1999 list of the most important American musical works of the 20th century as compiled by their music editors.
Hupfeld lived his whole life in Montclair, New Jersey and spent many hours at a watering hole built in 1922 on Valley Road which was then part of Upper Montclair, now the Valley Regency. This location, previously known as the Robin Hood Inn, is the location where Hupfeld spent many hours at their piano and wrote several of his songs. A plaque located at the Valley Regency Catering Facility on Valley Road in Clifton, New Jersey commemorates the writing of the song by Hupfeld. Although the building was extensively renovated in 2000-2003, the owners, seeing the value of the plaque retained it and left it where it was, on the second floor of the facility.
Cover versions
The song has been performed by several artists, including Billie HolidayBillie Holiday
Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing...
, Engelbert Humperdinck
Engelbert Humperdinck (singer)
Engelbert Humperdinck is a British pop singer, best known for his hits including "Release Me " and "After the Lovin'" as well as "The Last Waltz" .-Early life:...
, Bing Crosby
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....
, Perry Como
Perry Como
Pierino Ronald "Perry" Como was an American singer and television personality. During a career spanning more than half a century he recorded exclusively for the RCA Victor label after signing with them in 1943. "Mr...
, Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
, Harry Nilsson
Harry Nilsson
Harry Edward Nilsson III was an American singer-songwriter who achieved the peak of his commercial success in the early 1970s. On all but his earliest recordings he is credited as Nilsson...
, Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
, Julio Iglesias
Julio Iglesias
Julio José Iglesias de la Cueva , better known simply as Julio Iglesias, is a Spanish singer who has sold over 300 million records worldwide in 14 languages and released 77 albums. According to Sony Music Entertainment, he is one of the top 15 best selling music artists in history,...
, Johnny Nash
Johnny Nash
John Lester "Johnny" Nash, Jr. is an American pop singer-songwriter, best known in the US for his 1972 hit, "I Can See Clearly Now". He was also the first non-Jamaican to record reggae music in Kingston, Jamaica.-Life and career:...
(#43 on Billboard pop chart, 1959), Carly Simon
Carly Simon
Carly Elisabeth Simon is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and children's author. She rose to fame in the 1970s with a string of hit records, and has since been the recipient of two Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, and a Golden Globe Award for her work...
, Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett is an American singer of popular music, standards, show tunes, and jazz....
, Arielle Dombasle
Arielle Dombasle
Arielle Dombasle is a French-American singer, actress, director and model. Her breakthrough roles were in Éric Rohmer's Pauline at the Beach and Alain Robbe-Grillet's The Blue Villa...
, Jane Monheit
Jane Monheit
Jane Monheit is a jazz and adult contemporary vocalist for Concord Records. She has collaborated with artists such as Michael Bublé, Ivan Lins, Terence Blanchard and Tom Harrell, and has received Grammy nominations for two of her recordings.-Early life:Jane Monheit was raised in Oakdale, New York...
, Rod Stewart
Rod Stewart
Roderick David "Rod" Stewart, CBE is a British singer-songwriter and musician, born and raised in North London, England and currently residing in Epping. He is of Scottish and English ancestry....
, Jimmy Durante
Jimmy Durante
James Francis "Jimmy" Durante was an American singer, pianist, comedian and actor. His distinctive clipped gravelly speech, comic language butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and large nose helped make him one of America's most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s...
, Gal Costa
Gal Costa
Gal Costa is a Brazilian singer of popular music.-Early life:...
, Sammy Davis, Jr.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
Samuel George "Sammy" Davis Jr. was an American entertainer and was also known for his impersonations of actors and other celebrities....
, Bryan Ferry
Bryan Ferry
Bryan Ferry, CBE is an English singer, musician, and songwriter. Ferry came to public prominence in the early 1970s as lead vocalist and principal songwriter with the band Roxy Music, who enjoyed a highly successful career with three number one albums and ten singles entering the top ten charts in...
, Willie Nelson
Willie Nelson
Willie Hugh Nelson is an American country music singer-songwriter, as well as an author, poet, actor, and activist. The critical success of the album Shotgun Willie , combined with the critical and commercial success of Red Headed Stranger and Stardust , made Nelson one of the most recognized...
, Vera Lynn
Vera Lynn
Dame Vera Lynn, DBE is an English singer-songwriter and actress whose musical recordings and performances were enormously popular during World War II. During the war she toured Egypt, India and Burma, giving outdoor concerts for the troops...
, Andy Williams
Andy Williams
Howard Andrew "Andy" Williams is an American singer who has recorded 18 Gold- and three Platinum-certified albums. He hosted The Andy Williams Show, a TV variety show, from 1962 to 1971, as well as numerous television specials, and owns his own theater, the Moon River Theatre in Branson, Missouri,...
, Barry White
Barry White
Barry White, born Barry Eugene Carter , was an American composer and singer-songwriter.A five-time Grammy Award-winner known for his distinctive bass voice and romantic image, White's greatest success came in the 1970s as a solo singer and with the Love Unlimited Orchestra, crafting many enduring...
, The Duprees
The Duprees
The Duprees is an American musical group of doo-wop style which had a series of hit records in the early 1960s.-Career:The group originated in the early 1960s in Jersey City, New Jersey, and comprised William L. Dickinson High School students Michael Arnone, Joe Santollo, John Salvato, Tom...
, Johnnie Ray
Johnnie Ray
Johnnie Ray was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Popular for most of the 1950s, Ray has been cited by critics as a major precursor of what would become rock and roll, for his jazz and blues-influenced music and his animated stage personality.-Early life:John Alvin Ray was born in...
, ZZ Top
ZZ Top
ZZ Top is an American rock band, sometimes referred to as "That Little Ol' Band from Texas". Their style, which is rooted in blues-based boogie rock, has come to incorporate elements of arena, southern, and boogie rock. The band, from Houston Texas, formed in 1969...
, Amanda Lear
Amanda Lear
Amanda Lear is a French singer, lyricist, composer, painter, TV presenter, actress and novelist....
, Widespread Panic
Widespread Panic
Widespread Panic is an American rock band from Athens, Georgia. The current lineup includes guitarist/singer John Bell, bassist Dave Schools, drummer Todd Nance, percussionist Domingo "Sunny" Ortiz, keyboardist John "JoJo" Hermann, and guitarist Jimmy Herring...
and Johnny Mathis
Johnny Mathis
John Royce "Johnny" Mathis is an American singer of popular music. Starting his career with singles of standards, he became highly popular as an album artist, with several dozen of his albums achieving gold or platinum status, and 73 making the Billboard charts...
. Notable versions include:
- Barbra StreisandBarbra StreisandBarbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...
from The Third Album - Bob DylanBob DylanBob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
, then known as Bob Zimmerman, performed the song on January 9, 1959 at the Jacket Jamboree in Hibbing Minnesota. - Jimmy DuranteJimmy DuranteJames Francis "Jimmy" Durante was an American singer, pianist, comedian and actor. His distinctive clipped gravelly speech, comic language butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and large nose helped make him one of America's most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s...
on his 1965 album, "Jimmy Durante's Way Of Life." This rendition was later included on the soundtrackSoundtrackA soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...
of Sleepless in SeattleSleepless in SeattleThe film was originally to have been scored by John Barry, but when he was given a list of 20 songs he had to put in the film, he quit.#As Time Goes By - Jimmy Durante #A Kiss to Build a Dream on - Louis Armstrong #Stardust - Nat King Cole...
.
In popular culture
- It inspired the title of the first memoir of Beatles publicist Derek TaylorDerek TaylorDerek Taylor was an English journalist, writer and publicist, best known for his work as press officer for The Beatles...
published by Sphere BooksSphere Books-History:Founded in 1961, Sphere Books began work on its first publication, the 1962 paperback edition of Gottfried Benn's The Trainee Man. Originally part of The Thomson Corporation, Sphere was sold to Pearson PLC in 1985 and became part of Penguin...
in 1973.http://www.beatlesagain.com/bderek.html - It is the source of the title of 1990s British comedy series As Time Goes ByAs Time Goes By (TV series)As Time Goes By is a British sitcom that aired on BBC One from 1992 to 2005. Starring Judi Dench and Geoffrey Palmer, it follows the relationship between two former lovers who meet unexpectedly after not having been in contact for 38 years....
, and a recording by Joe FaginJoe FaginJoe Fagin is a British pop singer-songwriter.-Biography:He was musical director for Jim Davidson, including his 1983 Falklands tour....
was used as the show's theme song. - Warner Bros.Warner Bros.Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
, the studio that produced Casablanca, has included the chorus to the song in the opening to its films since 1998, when it celebrated its 75th anniversary. A shorter version was later added to the closing logo for productions of Warner's television unitWarner Bros. TelevisionWarner Bros. Television is the television production arm of Warner Bros. Entertainment, itself part of Time Warner. Alongside CBS Television Studios, it serves as a television production arm of The CW Television Network , though it also produces shows for other networks, such as Shameless on...
.