Desmond Carter Articles

Percival Mackey

“I Have No Words” (1930)

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“I Have No Words.” Composed by W. Desmond Carter (words) and Arthur Schwartz (music) for the London stage musical Little Tommy Tucker (1930). Recorded in London on October 23, 1930 by Percival Mackey and His Band with vocalist Maurice Elwin. Columbia CB-168 mx. WA-10819-2.

Personnel: Percival Mackey dir. Jack Jackson-Andy Richardson-t / Ben Oakley-tb / Chester Smith-another?-cl-as / George Smith-ts / Dave Fish-vn / Pat Dodd-p / Bob Martin-bj-g / Jim Bellamy-bb-sb / Bill Harty-d / Maurice Elwin-v

Percival Mackey and His Band – “I Have No Words” (1930)
(Transfer by Henry Parsons)

Percival Mackey’s “I Have No Words,” like its reverse side (“Let’s Be Sentimental”), derives from the London stage show Little Tommy Tucker, a comedy of errors that was not particularly successful. The song did not make it into the movie version (Out of the Blue), so I have no way of telling which character sang it or what the context was, but no matter. “I Have No Words” is a musically compelling love song with light, witty lyrics by Desmond Carter that have been called “nonchalantly sophisticated” and “flippantly unsentimental.” 1

Percival Mackey’s version of the song has a very stylish arrangement, quick and upbeat. Maurice Elwin delivers the vocal refrain in a somewhat deadpan way, as if not in on the fact that the lyrics are incredibly silly. As in so many other comical vocals, Elwin plays the straight man; his seriousness or earnestness is the source of the humor. There is, perhaps, also a level on which Elwin’s smooth, sweet delivery rescues the lyric from being merely comical. I do not think that would have been possible if other excerpts from the original lyrics had been included:

I would beg for you,
Break a leg for you,
Lay an egg for you... 2

As usual, producing a first-rate recording of this sort is the work not only of a band and its vocalist but of the arranger, who, among other things, decides which short excerpt from a song to use as the vocal refrain.

The other British dance band treatments of “I Have No Words” occur only in medleys. The New Mayfair Dance Orchestra had recorded a purely instrumental medley (it literally had no words) three days before the Percival Mackey recording. On November 1, The Million-Airs (under Arthur Lally’s direction) would release one that had Maurice Elwin once again singing a snippet of “I Have No Words.”

While there are very few recordings, then, of “I Have No Words” per se, there are many of its basic melody. Immediately after working with Desmond Carter to set the lyrics of “I Have No Words” to music, composer Arthur Schwartz would turn to Howard Dietz to write new lyrics, producing the song “Something to Remember You By,” which was introduced on Broadway by Libby Holman in Three’s a Crowd (1930). Both Holman and Helen Morgan committed memorable versions of the song to shellac that year, and it has continued to be recorded every few years since and been featured in many movies.

It is interesting to note that “I Have No Words” had little staying power, while “Something to Remember You By” — fundamentally the same tune — has been so favored by musicians and audiences over the course of nearly a century. Composer and musicologist Alec Wilder was unaware of the melody’s origin in Little Tommy Tucker but had heard what he thought was an “unsubstantiated story” that an original version of “Something to Remember You By” had been sung “at least twice as fast as its later version.” 3 Wilder praised the decision to slow it down as having been “fortunate for all lovers of good song.” 4

This is a rare case where I cannot agree with Wilder or, apparently, popular taste. To me, the slow pace of “Something to Remember You By” makes it treacly, and its lyrics seem hackneyed. Percival Mackey’s “I Have No Words” with its Maurice Elwin vocal will always stand out as an excellent example of how the original concept could be executed successfully.

Notes:

  1. Philip Furia, The Poets of Tin Pan Alley: A History of America’s Great Lyricists. New York: Oxford University Press. ↩
  2. Ibid. ↩
  3. Alec Wilder. American Popular Song: The Great Innovators (1900-1950). Kindle location 4031. ↩
  4. Ibid., Kindle location 4035. ↩
Percival Mackey

“Let’s Be Sentimental” (1930)

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“Let’s Be Sentimental.” Lyrics by Desmond Carter, music by Vivian Ellis (1930). Recorded in London on October 23, 1930 by Percival Mackey and His Band with vocalist Maurice Elwin. Columbia CB-168 mx. WA-10818-2.

Personnel: Percival Mackey dir. Jack Jackson-Andy Richardson-t / Ben Oakley-tb / Chester Smith-another?-cl-as / George Smith-ts / Dave Fish-vn / Pat Dodd-p / Bob Martin-bj-g / Jim Bellamy-bb-sb / Billy Harty-d / Maurice Elwin-v

Percival Mackey and His Band – “Let’s Be Sentimental” (1930)
(Transfer by Henry Parsons)

“Let’s Be Sentimental” is, like many British dance band tunes, a delightful by-product of a not very successful London show. Little Tommy Tucker is the story of one Thomasina (“Tommy”) Tucker, the daughter of an impoverished baronet, who has to — you guessed it — “sing for her supper.” The man she has fallen in love with is betrothed to her sister. He does not love the sister, but his best friend does. Trying to get away from it all, Tommy ends up in Biarritz, impersonating a singer who has herself been pretending to be an exiled Russian princess. This is a comedy of errors reminiscent of the P. G. Wodehouse Blandings novels, insofar as several of the characters are always confused as to the others’ identities.

Little Tommy Tucker toured for six weeks, was partially recast and rewritten, and then lasted only two and a half months on the London stage. 1 In spite of this lackluster performance, Pathé would release a film version the next year, although it used only two of the songs and renamed it Out of the Blue, after one of the songs. “Let’s Be Sentimental” is the other, and it is sung by Gene Gerard and Jessie Matthews.

The lyrics concern the supposed necessity of going through commonplace romantic gestures if romance is to succeed. There is some clever wordplay, but it is the tune that is truly daring. In each verse the melody gradually rises, then falls a fifth abruptly, rises a fifth, falls a fifth, and then rises and falls a third time. That pattern is likely to throw off a less than competent singer, and even then, there is the risk of sounding like a police siren. Composer Vivian Ellis must have liked the effect, as he used a toned-down version of it in “I’m on a See-Saw” in Jill Darling (1934). 2

Percival Mackey must have felt bullish about Maurice Elwin, as it is the latter who introduces the unusual melody, and not the instrumentalists. By contrast, in the Jack Hylton version of “Let’s Be Sentimental,” first-rate vocalist Pat O’Malley comes in comparatively late in the recording. 3 It is my overall impression that Elwin leads with the vocals somewhat more often than other singers — I shall have to substantiate that claim over time — and I suspect that, if I am right, it is because he is reliably interesting without upstaging the band. There is little risk of doing that here, though: Percival Mackey’s band is at its most elegant in this piece, successfully executing the clever arrangement that puts foregrounded saxophones and violins in antiphonal conversation with muted brass. 4

Notes:

  1. London Musicals (1930-1934). Over the Footlights. ↩
  2. My thanks to Julian Dyer for pointing out the resemblance. ↩
  3. The third British dance band appearance of “Let’s Be Sentimental” is in a New Mayfair Dance Orchestra medley, which may be heard on John Wright’s British Dance Band Show No. 274. ↩
  4. My thanks to Terry Brown and Henry Parsons for their comments on the arrangement. ↩