I Love You Truly
Encyclopedia
I Love You Truly, written by Carrie Jacobs Bond, is a parlor song
. The song has been used at weddings since its release. It was the first song written by a woman to sell one million copies of sheet music
. Among Jacobs-Bond's compositions, only "A Perfect Day
" exceeded sales of "I Love You Truly" during her lifetime.
back to her hometown Janesville, Wisconsin
. She wrote the song after returning to Janesville. She made a meager living painting ceramics and writing songs. While painting she would hum improvised tunes and add verses. These improvised tunes became the basis for her collection of sheet music
called Seven Songs as Unpretentious as the Wild Rose.
A young female singer lived across the hall from Jacobs-Bond had to leave unexpectedly, so she asked Jacobs-Bond to entertain her manager and another man. When the two men arrived, Jacobs-Bond invited them into her apartment. The manager, Victor P. Sincere, saw some of her manuscripts lying around and asked if she had written them. After Jacobs-Bond said "yes", Sincere asked her to perform a song, so she played "I Love You Truly". He asked if she would like to have the song performed in public, and she answered "no" because she had not copyright
ed the song, and someone would be able to steal it. Jacobs-Bond had second thoughts, so she went to the telephone at the corner drugstore
and called Jessie Bartlett Davis
, even though they had never met. Jacobs Bond hoped that Bartlett Davis would make the song popular as she had for "Oh Promise Me
" in 1898. Bartlett Davis volunteered to pay the cost for publishing Seven Songs as Unpretentious as the Wild Rose, which includes two of Jacobs-Bond's hits, "I Love You Truly" and "Just Awearyin' for You
". "A Perfect Day
" was the only Jacobs-Bond composition to exceed this collection in sales during the songwriter's lifetime.
. Numerous artists have recorded the song, including Sophie Braslau
, Joel McCrea
, Jeanette MacDonald
backed by Richard Ambruster's orchestra, Pat Boone
, Victor Borge
, Al Bowlly
, Bing Crosby
, Deep River Boys
with orchestra (Recorded in Oslo
on August 24, 1956, and released on the extended play
Hello young lovers HMV 7EGN 12), Connie Francis
, Dusolina Giannini
, Erskine Hawkins
, The Ink Spots
, Liberace
, Guy Lombardo
, Lawrence Welk
, the Platters
, and the McGuire Sisters
. It remains a mainstay of barbershop
harmony arrangers and singers.
Starting with A Lady's Morals
, a feature film
about Jenny Lind
in which "I Love You Truly" was sung by Grace Moore
, the song has been in numerous movies, invariably in wedding scenes. The song was also sung by Bert (Ward Bond
) and Ernie (Frank Faylen
) as they serenaded George and Mary Bailey on their wedding night in the leaky "old Granville place" (house) in Frank Capra
's It's a Wonderful Life
.
Waltz King Wayne King
changed "I Love You Truly" from its original 2/4 time to 3/4.
Shirley Temple
used the song in her 1945 wedding.
It was sung by Elizabeth Patterson
(pre-Mrs. Trumbull character) in the I Love Lucy
episode "Marriage License" in 1952.
It was sung by Jean Stapleton (Edith Bunker) as a lullaby to Carroll O'Connor
(Archie Bunker) in All in the Family
.
"I Love You Truly" appears in Mel Bay's Modern Guitar Method Grade 6.
Life with its sorrow, life with its tears
Fades into dreams when I feel you are near
For I love you truly, truly dear.
Ah! Love, 'tis something to feel your kind hand
Ah! Yes, 'tis something by your side to stand;
Gone is the sorrow, gone doubt and fear,
For you love me truly, truly dear.
Parlour music
Parlour music is a type of popular music which, as the name suggests, is intended to be performed in the parlours of middle class homes by amateur singers and pianists...
. The song has been used at weddings since its release. It was the first song written by a woman to sell one million copies of sheet music
Sheet music
Sheet music is a hand-written or printed form of music notation that uses modern musical symbols; like its analogs—books, pamphlets, etc.—the medium of sheet music typically is paper , although the access to musical notation in recent years includes also presentation on computer screens...
. Among Jacobs-Bond's compositions, only "A Perfect Day
A Perfect Day (song)
"A Perfect Day" is a parlor song written by Carrie Jacobs-Bond in 1909 at the Mission Inn, Riverside, California. Jacobs-Bond wrote the lyrics after watching the sun set over Mount Rubidoux from her 4th-floor room. She came up with the tune three months later while touring the Mojave Desert...
" exceeded sales of "I Love You Truly" during her lifetime.
History
After a financially troubled youth, Bond was inspired to start writing songs by her second husband Dr. Frank Bond. After he died from falling on ice in 1895, she moved from the economically depressed Upper Peninsula of MichiganUpper Peninsula of Michigan
The Upper Peninsula of Michigan is the northern of the two major land masses that make up the U.S. state of Michigan. It is commonly referred to as the Upper Peninsula, the U.P., or Upper Michigan. It is also known as the land "above the Bridge" linking the two peninsulas. The peninsula is bounded...
back to her hometown Janesville, Wisconsin
Janesville, Wisconsin
Janesville is a city in southern Wisconsin, United States. It is the county seat of Rock County and the principal municipality of the Janesville, Wisconsin Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 62,998.-History:...
. She wrote the song after returning to Janesville. She made a meager living painting ceramics and writing songs. While painting she would hum improvised tunes and add verses. These improvised tunes became the basis for her collection of sheet music
Sheet music
Sheet music is a hand-written or printed form of music notation that uses modern musical symbols; like its analogs—books, pamphlets, etc.—the medium of sheet music typically is paper , although the access to musical notation in recent years includes also presentation on computer screens...
called Seven Songs as Unpretentious as the Wild Rose.
A young female singer lived across the hall from Jacobs-Bond had to leave unexpectedly, so she asked Jacobs-Bond to entertain her manager and another man. When the two men arrived, Jacobs-Bond invited them into her apartment. The manager, Victor P. Sincere, saw some of her manuscripts lying around and asked if she had written them. After Jacobs-Bond said "yes", Sincere asked her to perform a song, so she played "I Love You Truly". He asked if she would like to have the song performed in public, and she answered "no" because she had not copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
ed the song, and someone would be able to steal it. Jacobs-Bond had second thoughts, so she went to the telephone at the corner drugstore
Pharmacy
Pharmacy is the health profession that links the health sciences with the chemical sciences and it is charged with ensuring the safe and effective use of pharmaceutical drugs...
and called Jessie Bartlett Davis
Jessie Bartlett Davis
Jessie Bartlett Davis was an American operatic singer and actress from Morris, Illinois, who was billed as "America's Representative Contralto".-Opera and acting:...
, even though they had never met. Jacobs Bond hoped that Bartlett Davis would make the song popular as she had for "Oh Promise Me
Oh Promise Me
Oh Promise Me is a song with music by Reginald De Koven and lyrics by Clement Scott. The song was written in 1887 and first published in 1889 as an art song. De Koven may have based the melody partly on an aria by Stanislao Gastaldon, "Musica Proibita". In 1890, De Koven wrote his most...
" in 1898. Bartlett Davis volunteered to pay the cost for publishing Seven Songs as Unpretentious as the Wild Rose, which includes two of Jacobs-Bond's hits, "I Love You Truly" and "Just Awearyin' for You
Just Awearyin' for You
"Just Awearyin' for You" is a parlor song, one of that genre's all-time hits.The lyrics were written by Frank Lebby Stanton and published in his Songs of the Soil . The tune was composed by Carrie Jacobs-Bond and published as part of Seven Songs as Unpretentious as the Wild Rose in 1901. Harry T...
". "A Perfect Day
A Perfect Day (song)
"A Perfect Day" is a parlor song written by Carrie Jacobs-Bond in 1909 at the Mission Inn, Riverside, California. Jacobs-Bond wrote the lyrics after watching the sun set over Mount Rubidoux from her 4th-floor room. She came up with the tune three months later while touring the Mojave Desert...
" was the only Jacobs-Bond composition to exceed this collection in sales during the songwriter's lifetime.
Artists
The song hit #1 in the United States in 1912 when it was recorded by Elsie BakerElsie Baker
Elsie Baker was an American singer and actress whose career spanned the gamut from vaudeville through silent movies to Victrola to radio to Hollywood and television....
. Numerous artists have recorded the song, including Sophie Braslau
Sophie Braslau
Sophie Braslau was a contralto prominent in United States opera, starting with her debut in New York's Metropolitan Opera in 1913 when she was just 21 years of age....
, Joel McCrea
Joel McCrea
Joel Albert McCrea was an American actor whose career spanned 50 years and appearances in over 90 films.-Early life:...
, Jeanette MacDonald
Jeanette MacDonald
Jeanette MacDonald was an American singer and actress best remembered for her musical films of the 1930s with Maurice Chevalier and Nelson Eddy...
backed by Richard Ambruster's orchestra, Pat Boone
Pat Boone
Charles Eugene "Pat" Boone is an American singer, actor and writer who has been a successful pop singer in the United States during the 1950s and early 1960s. He covered black artists' songs and sold more copies than his black counterparts...
, Victor Borge
Victor Borge
Victor Borge ,born Børge Rosenbaum, was a Danish comedian, conductor and pianist, affectionately known as The Clown Prince of Denmark,The Unmelancholy Dane,and The Great Dane.-Early life and career:...
, Al Bowlly
Al Bowlly
Albert Allick Bowlly was a Southern-African singer, songwriter, composer and band leader, who became a popular Jazz crooner during the 1930s in the United Kingdom and later, in the United States of America. He recorded more than 1,000 records between 1927 and 1941...
, 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....
, Deep River Boys
Deep River Boys
The Deep River Boys were an American gospel music group active from the mid 1930s and into the 1980s. The group performed spirituals, gospel, and R&B.-Members:...
with orchestra (Recorded in Oslo
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
on August 24, 1956, and released on the extended play
Extended play
An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...
Hello young lovers HMV 7EGN 12), Connie Francis
Connie Francis
Connie Francis is an American pop singer of Italian heritage and the top-charting female vocalist of the 1950s and 1960s. Although her chart success waned in the second half of the 1960s, Francis remained a top concert draw...
, Dusolina Giannini
Dusolina Giannini
Dusolina Giannini was an Italian-American soprano, particularly associated with the Italian repertory....
, Erskine Hawkins
Erskine Hawkins
Erskine Ramsay Hawkins was an American trumpet player and big band leader from Birmingham, Alabama, dubbed "The 20th Century Gabriel". He is most remembered for composing the jazz standard "Tuxedo Junction" with saxophonist and arranger Bill Johnson...
, The Ink Spots
The Ink Spots
The Ink Spots were a popular vocal group in the 1930s and 1940s that helped define the musical genre that led to rhythm and blues and rock and roll, and the subgenre doo-wop...
, Liberace
Liberace
Wladziu Valentino Liberace , best known simply as Liberace, was a famous American pianist and vocalist.In a career that spanned four decades of concerts, recordings, motion pictures, television and endorsements, Liberace became world-renowned...
, Guy Lombardo
Guy Lombardo
Gaetano Alberto "Guy" Lombardo was a Canadian-American bandleader and violinist.Forming "The Royal Canadians" in 1924 with his brothers Carmen, Lebert, and Victor and other musicians from his hometown, Lombardo led the group to international success, billing themselves as creating "The Sweetest...
, Lawrence Welk
Lawrence Welk
Lawrence Welk was an American musician, accordionist, bandleader, and television impresario, who hosted The Lawrence Welk Show from 1955 to 1982...
, the Platters
The Platters
The Platters were a vocal group of the early rock and roll era. Their distinctive sound was a bridge between the pre-rock Tin Pan Alley tradition and the burgeoning new genre...
, and the McGuire Sisters
The McGuire Sisters
The McGuire Sisters were a singing trio in American popular music. The group was composed of three sisters: Christine McGuire , Dorothy McGuire , and Phyllis McGuire...
. It remains a mainstay of barbershop
Barbershop music
Barbershop vocal harmony, as codified during the barbershop revival era , is a style of a cappella, or unaccompanied vocal music characterized by consonant four-part chords for every melody note in a predominantly homophonic texture...
harmony arrangers and singers.
Starting with A Lady's Morals
A Lady's Morals
A Lady's Morals is a 1930 film offering a highly fictionalized account of singer Jenny Lind. The movie features Grace Moore as Lind, Reginald Denny as a lover, and Wallace Beery as P. T. Barnum; Beery would play Barnum again four years later in The Mighty Barnum...
, a feature film
Feature film
In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
about Jenny Lind
Jenny Lind
Johanna Maria Lind , better known as Jenny Lind, was a Swedish opera singer, often known as the "Swedish Nightingale". One of the most highly regarded singers of the 19th century, she is known for her performances in soprano roles in opera in Sweden and across Europe, and for an extraordinarily...
in which "I Love You Truly" was sung by Grace Moore
Grace Moore
Grace Moore was an American operatic soprano and actress in musical theatre and film. She was nicknamed the "Tennessee Nightingale." Her films helped to popularize opera by bringing it to a larger audience.-Early life:...
, the song has been in numerous movies, invariably in wedding scenes. The song was also sung by Bert (Ward Bond
Ward Bond
Wardell Edwin "Ward" Bond was an American film actor whose rugged appearance and easygoing charm were featured in over 200 movies and the television series Wagon Train.-Early life:...
) and Ernie (Frank Faylen
Frank Faylen
Frank Faylen was an American movie and television actor.Born Frank Ruf in St. Louis, Missouri, he began his acting career as an infant appearing with his vaudeville performing parents on stage...
) as they serenaded George and Mary Bailey on their wedding night in the leaky "old Granville place" (house) in Frank Capra
Frank Capra
Frank Russell Capra was a Sicilian-born American film director. He emigrated to the U.S. when he was six, and eventually became a creative force behind major award-winning films during the 1930s and 1940s...
's It's a Wonderful Life
It's a Wonderful Life
It's a Wonderful Life is a 1946 American Christmas drama film produced and directed by Frank Capra and based on the short story "The Greatest Gift" written by Philip Van Doren Stern....
.
Waltz King Wayne King
Wayne King
Wayne King was an American musician, songwriter, singer and orchestral leader. He was sometimes referred to as "the Waltz King" because much of his most popular music involved waltzes; "The Waltz You Saved For Me" was his standard set closing song in live performance and on numerous radio...
changed "I Love You Truly" from its original 2/4 time to 3/4.
Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple Black , born Shirley Jane Temple, is an American film and television actress, singer, dancer, autobiographer, and former U.S. Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia...
used the song in her 1945 wedding.
It was sung by Elizabeth Patterson
Elizabeth Patterson
Elizabeth Patterson is the name of:* Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte , sister-in-law of Emperor Napoleon I of France* Liz J. Patterson , U.S...
(pre-Mrs. Trumbull character) in the I Love Lucy
I Love Lucy
I Love Lucy is an American television sitcom starring Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley. The black-and-white series originally ran from October 15, 1951, to May 6, 1957, on the Columbia Broadcasting System...
episode "Marriage License" in 1952.
It was sung by Jean Stapleton (Edith Bunker) as a lullaby to Carroll O'Connor
Carroll O'Connor
John Carroll O'Connor best known as Carroll O'Connor, was an American actor, producer and director whose television career spanned four decades...
(Archie Bunker) in All in the Family
All in the Family
All in the Family is an American sitcom that was originally broadcast on the CBS television network from January 12, 1971, to April 8, 1979. In September 1979, a new show, Archie Bunker's Place, picked up where All in the Family had ended...
.
"I Love You Truly" appears in Mel Bay's Modern Guitar Method Grade 6.
Lyrics
I love you truly, truly dear,Life with its sorrow, life with its tears
Fades into dreams when I feel you are near
For I love you truly, truly dear.
Ah! Love, 'tis something to feel your kind hand
Ah! Yes, 'tis something by your side to stand;
Gone is the sorrow, gone doubt and fear,
For you love me truly, truly dear.
External links
- Sheet music for I Love You Truly (Transcribed, in 3 keys, with MIDI files)
- I Love You Truly Scans of original sheet music from Wisconsin Sheet Music Database
- Free I Love You Truly MP3 (Instrumental)