I’m a paleontologist listening to all of the Billboard top 100s so I can learn something about popular music and history. Here’s my previous year: 1941.

OK, On to the second year of my run through the history of pop music: 1942. The USA was in its first year of World War 2, and I expect this music to reflect that national effort.

As I go through the songs each year, I will note the race and gender of the artists, so I can track how representation changes over the years. You might expect 50% of songs to be sung by women if they were a random sample of the population. Based on the racial mix of the USA in the 1940s, you would expect about ten of the top 100 songs to be by a Black artist or artists and maybe one by another non-White racial group. Similarly, you would expect one or two songs by Latinx artists.

As with 1941, I’m going to go through the songs in reverse order so I can count down to the big hits. It looks like I have more of the Dorsey brothers to look forward to, as well as many Glenn Miller tunes.

TL;DR notes:

1. Glenn Miller absolutely dominated 1942, with 14 top 100 hits. The Dorsey Brothers combine for 13 hits together, but the second place outright goes to Harry James with nine, followed by Kay Kyser with eight. These top five account for 44 of the top 100, so there’s a pretty uneven distribution of talent this year. There are only 34 artists represented overall, and only six of them have women in the headline of the acts.
2. Of the 34 artists, five included Black folks in their headliners, and you would expect 10%, or three to four, so it’s not an unusual number. However, when you go by number of tunes in the top 100, you only see five of them with Black folks, because so many White artists repeated on the chart. That’s down from six out of 80 in 1941. You would expect ~10 in 1942, so five is underrepresented.
3. There are no Latinx artists this year, according to my research. That’s down from 9 in 1941. That seems interesting.
4. Women make up only six of the 34 artists, and they would be expected to be half, so that’s underrepresented. When you go by tracks, 12 of 100 have female artists, so still extremely underrepresented.
5. Notable songs include: “Strip Polka”, “Der Fuhrer’s Face”, “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition”, “I said No!”, “White Christmas”, “Moonlight Cocktail”. My favorite is “Strip Polka” by the Andrews Sisters, followed by “Dr Fuhrer’s Face.” I gave 45 tracks a heart this year. That’s up from 33/80 (41%) in 1941.

The Billboard Chart for 1942:

1. Vaughn Monroe “Tangerine ” – Starts with unison trumpets over a backing band, with a bit of a Latin sound. Now a male vocalist is singing about a dreamy girl in Rio that he went to see. Lots of “ee” rhymes. Now it’s just a crooning song, about a woman named “Tangerine”, which is not a name I’d pick for a dreamboat in a song, myself. I’m not a big fan of crooning (as you can see from my 1941 chart walk), so I’m going to pass on this song. White male artist.
2. Freddy Martin and His Orchestra “Johnny Doughboy Found a Rose in Ireland” – The first of four covers of this tune this year. Is that an oboe soloing to start out this song? It has a weepy sound, with wah-wah instruments and a minor-ish key sound, that blinks into happy major key notes. This goes on for some time. Now we definitely have a clarinet taking the lead, just before the vocals start in at 1:30: halfway through this track. It’s, unsurprisingly, about an American soldier who has found love in Ireland. This slow, ballad-y track doesn’t get me excited, and I’ll pass on it as well. White male artist.
3. Gordon Jenkins and His Orchestra “White Christmas” – This is the first of two recordings of this song to chart in 1942, and the other is the famous Bing Crosby version, so I don’t hold out hope for this one. It starts out with a piano playing the melody, backed by a Big Band. Now we’re getting the whole band in harmony covering the well-known melody. Will there be vocals? Maybe I’ll find out in 30 seconds or more… Yes! Again, after 1:30 in a 3 minute track. This vocalist is OK, but he’s no Bing Crosby. I’ll pass on this song and save my heart for the Bing Crosby version. White male artist.
4. Freddy Martin and His Orchestra “A Touch of Texas” – YouTube to the rescue. This track starts out with a choo-choo train rhythm and it becomes clear that the song is about a man who has gotten too much of Texas and wants to get back to New York. It’s catchy, and I appreciate the sentiment that Texas is too overwhelming in its Texas-ness and one needs to get back to civilization. Too bad it’s not on Spotify, so I can’t heart it there. White male artist.
5. Ray Noble and His Orchestra “By the Light of the Silv’ry Moon” – After a false start, I realized I had reviewed this track in 1941, so apparently it stuck on through the 41-42 Winter season. I still don’t like the crooning intro but appreciate the boogie-woogie end to the track. White male artist.
6. Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra “How About You?” – Big band big sound introduction, then into wah-wah trombone (hardly surprising, because Tommy was a trombonist). He seems to be blowing the singing part on the trombone for the first minute and a half. Now we have a male vocalist. He likes New York in June and Gershwin tune. How about you? Essentially it’s a list of the things he likes, and he’s asking the hypothetical woman he’s singing to whether she likes these things, too. It’s all done in a pretty standard crooning mode, with Big Band backing him. It would be better if it were a call-and-response with a female vocalist, I think, with a chance for some humor. I’ll give it a pass. White male artist.
7. Harry James and His Orchestra “Skylark” – Strumming guitar and whistling to start this track, with the whistling calling and a muted trumpet (probably Harry James himself) responding. I guess the whistle is the titular skylark? It has an overall jazzy feel and I kinda dig it. Now we have a female vocalist, and I think she’s singing to the skylark, asking it for love advice. I’m not sure it can really help her, but maybe these are rhetorical questions. I’ll give it my first Spotify heart of 1942. It’s bringing the song home with great Big Band sound. White male artist.
8. Swing and Sway with Sammy Kaye “(There’ll Be Blue Birds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover” – This is the first of four covers of this track on the 1942 charts. The Sammy Kaye version seems not to be on Spotify, or on YouTube or anywhere else I can get access. So I’ll have to listen to the other three versions and just note that this one has a White male artist.
9. Alvino Rey and His Orchestra “Idaho” – YouTube to the rescue. It starts with some singing guitar (no surprise: that’s apparently Alvino Rey’s trademark.) Now it’s into a solid four Big Band sound, with all of the instruments taking their parts. I would heart this if it were on Spotify. Again, the vocals come in after one minute of intro. The male vocalists aren’t in great harmony, and there’s a woman yodeling over them. I think it’s supposed to invoke the open west, but it’s a bit square for a country and western theme. Rey was apparently a pioneer of electric instruments, and that comes through in this track. White male artist.
10. The Glenn Miller Orchestra “The Story of a Starry Night” – Sharp trumpets to open, then the clarinets mellow it down with a slow walk down the scale. Then it gets into a nice walking beat with muted trumpets and brushes on the snares, the winds rise and fall with the melody and it all seems to be trying to get me to relax. That’s not what music is for, at least for me, so I’m not too happy. At 1:30, here comes the make vocalist, singing the story of a starry night. This is a crooner tune, so I’m tuning out. White male artist.
11. The Glenn Miller Orchestra “American Patrol” – This one is famous enough that it gets regular play, or at least is used to set the era in period dramas. You would recognize the tune if you listened to it, and it’s catchy, so it gets a heart from me. It feels like the sort of tune you would expect Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter to dance to. Steve Rogers is Captain America, if you didn’t catch that. White male artist.
12. Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra “Be Careful, It’s My Heart” – Starts out with whiny woodwinds wending their way through a melody. Now on to wah-wah trombones and trumpets. I think someone’s going to eventually croon at me after about a minute of introduction. I have a feeling that when I get deep in the disco era, I’ll be wishing for these innocent crooner tunes, but for now they’re the bane of my tromp through the charts. Yes, at 1:30, the male vocalist starts singing: be careful, it’s not my watch you’re holding, or the note I sent you, or the book I leant you: It’s my heart. So sappy. White male artist.
13. Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra “Manhattan Serenade” – Some spoken word introduction, using hip language, quips traded between male and female speakers. Now on to the song, after about a minute. It’s got a slow walking beat, and now a muted trumpet is taking the melody. It’s not really going anywhere. It’s the sort of nowhere slow dance song they play in the background while the movie’s two leads have an important conversation while dancing: it keeps up the atmosphere but doesn’t distract from the conversation. Now, after 2:40, we get the female vocalist crooning along. I’m going to skip ahead to the next song. White male artist.
14. Dinah Shore “I Don’t Want to Walk without You” – Sad violins to start us out, now to sad muted wah-wah trumpet. Dinah gets to sing after only 15 seconds of intro! She won’t go out walking with her friends because…. She doesn’t want to walk without you, baby. Her voice is great, but I’m just not into this kind of slow, sad song. White female artist.
15. Johnnie Johnston “Dearly Beloved” – YouTube to the rescue. It’s a crooner tune, but the vocals start after only a short introduction. It’s really an unremarkable, archetypal crooner song, so I’m going to pass on it. Of note is that Johnnie Johnston, the pianist with the main credit here, is a Black male musician.
16. The Merry Macs “Deep in the Heart of Texas” – It has the rocking “Western” beat, complete with the cocoanut-clopping sound to invoke horses. It soon switches to a faster, solid four beat, but the harmonizing male and female voices dominate in a way that suggests western songs and not Big Band. The main instruments are brushes on snares and what I think is a mellophone! Now they’re yodeling while talking about wailing coyotes, and we have twangy guitar and the clip-clop again. I’ll pass on this song. White male and female artists.
17. Kenny Baker “Johnny Doughboy Found a Rose in Ireland” – Cover #2 of this song. Starts quickly into a male crooner vocalist, backed up by oom-pah strings and percussion. It’s not any better than the previous one, but I think the vocals are clearer and maybe more melodic? Anyway, it’s not on my list of favorites, so I’m going to move on. White male artist.
18. Bing Crosby “Be Careful It’s My Heart” – Second cover of this one, too. Bing Crosby is an excellent vocalist, but this is still a sappy, crooner love song. Again, I think this is slightly better, musically, than the lower-rated version. I hope I can get out of the crooner songs soon: I feel like 1942 is more rife with this sort of sappy tune. White male artist.
19. The Four King Sisters “My Devotion” – YouTube to the rescue. Four part harmony, unsurprisingly. It’s better than these crooner tunes, though. It’s still a slow, sappy love song. It’s musically interesting enough with the four part harmony that I would give it a heart if it were on Spotify. White female artists.
20. Paul Whiteman & His Orchestra “Trav’lin’ Light” – Muted trumpets and trombones to start out. Spotify has this on its Definitive Billie Holliday collection, so it looks like Paul Whiteman & His Orchestra are backing Billie H. I’ll give her a credit for this tune in my accounting of the race and gender of artists. She doesn’t come in to the song until 1:20, which is too bad, because she’s great. This is a slow song, but it’s not sappy. She’s travelling light because a man swept in and took her heart away. Clever. It gets a heart. Black female artist and white male artist.
21. Jimmy Dorsey and His Orchestra “Brazil (Aquarela Do Brasil)” – Happy trumpets to start, then into a wall of sound and it calms down to build back to the melody, sung by a male vocalist. This is, I believe, the tune that was the main theme of the Terry Gilliam movie Brazil, so I have some history with this tune. This version is in English, and I think it loses something over the Portugese. I’m surprised, but the original Portugese version of this song is not on the 1942 chart: this is what we get. White male artist.
22. Lucky Millinder and His Orchestra “When the Lights Go On Again (All Over the World)” – Tinkly piano to start this one. It’s catchy, with some good speed. The Big Band comes in quickly to back it up, and we’re into the vocalist before 30 seconds have passed. The song is about what we’ll do when the war is over and the boys are home. The vocal quality is good and it’s not just crooning, so I’ll give it a heart. Black male artist.
23. Jimmy Dorsey and His Orchestra “I Said No” – YouTube to the rescue. With this title, I’m worried… The male vocalist is singing about standing in her doorway, asking “How long can a lady resist?” OMG, this is a song all about a man not taking “no” for an answer. There’s no way a song like this would fly today. He wears her down by being persistent through the song, eventually getting a kiss. “Yes… That’s the word she really meant to say all the time.” Ugh. Now we have a female vocalist singing her version, which is essentially the same as the male part, but it has a surprising ending: instead of her “yes” being to a kiss, it’s to subscribing to Liberty Magazine: she was singing about talking to a door-to-door salesman. That does redeem it a bit, but it’s still a problematic song that would get no play time today. White male artist.
24. Jimmy Dorsey and His Orchestra “My Devotion” – Now we get the Jimmy Dorsey treatment of a song I liked when it was the Four King Sisters. YouTube to the rescue again. It’s a very stuffy-sounding male vocalist and not at all as good as the King Sisters were. It makes the song into a crooner piece and I’m just not moved by it. Ugh. Jimmy Dorsey isn’t doing it for me in 1942. White male vocalist.
25. Benny Goodman and His Orchestra “Take Me” – Big Band from the intro, with strong harmony. Now on to Benny’s clarinet carrying the melody. It has a solid four beat, and I like it. I’m curious whether there will be vocals. Yes, at 0:53. It’s a male vocalist who wants someone to take him and make him a part of their heart. It’s kinda sappy, but the solid four beat makes me happy, so it gets a heart. White male artist.
26. Dinah Shore “Dearly Beloved” – Second cover of this song in 1942. Sappy strings to start, then straight into Dinah’s vocals. It’s a love song about two people who were meant for one another. Dinah has a great voice, and she really carries this tune, despite its saccharine content. I’ll give it a heart. White female artist.
27. Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra “Daybreak” – Rising crescendo of horns backed by warbly strings, then into the melody on a muted trombone. It has the oom-pah beat of a waltz. It’s just not catchy. The vocals come in at almost 1:30 in the 2:48 track. It’s a crooning male vocalist, and I’m done with this tune. White male artist.
28. The Glenn Miller Orchestra “Always in My Heart” – Saxophones in harmony to begin this one, rising to a peak, then backing off and blending with muted trumpets and trombones all over a walking beat of brushes on the snare. It’s slow, but it clearly had musical intent, and I can dig it. Glenn Miller is just so great. The male vocalist comes in after 1:25, so almost halfway through the track. He’s singing about how you’re always in his heart, keeping him happy through grey days, etc. etc. I’ll give it a heart. White male artist.
29. Kate Smith “(There’ll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover” – Second of four covers of this tune in 1942. YouTube to the rescue. It gets right into the vocals after a brief woodwind introduction. It’s a song about how it will be peaceful soon enough when the world is free. This is straight up a song about how America needs to free Britain from the clutches of the Axis. I can see why it was popular in 1942, but this version, at least, isn’t getting me excited about going to punch some Nazis: it’s too slow and sappy. White female artist.
30. Harry James and His Orchestra “He’s My Guy” – Flute solo to introduce the piece. Now in to the trumpet solo, backed by the rest of the band in quiet harmony. It’s slow and just sounds like a crooning love song, so I’m ready for a crooning voice to come in after about a minute and a half… Ooh, only 1:13. Female vocalist singing about how she doesn’t care what her guy does because he’s her guy. That may not be a healthy attitude to take. It sounds like he may be psychologically abusive because he’s only smiling and hugging her “once in a while”. This is really a song about a woman who’s given herself all the way over to her guy, which could be great, but makes me worry. Keep some of yourself for yourself, honey. White male artist.
31. Jimmy Dorsey and His Orchestra “I Remember You” – YouTube to the rescue. Big sound to start out, with a piano (!). Now the male vocalist comes in quickly: no minute-long intro this time. It’s pretty typical crooning with the band not adding much musically, so I’m not sorry I can’t heart it on Spotify. White male artist.
32. Jimmy Dorsey and His Orchestra “Jersey Bounce” – The first of two covers and the other is Benny Goodman (so I expect to like it more!). This is a song that gets a lot of play in period pieces, so I recognize it. It’s got a good swinging beat and a catchy melody, so I’ll give it a heart.
33. Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians “Johnny Doughboy Found a Rose in Ireland” – Oh, man, this is the third cover of this song in 1942. It’s not on Spotify… YouTube to the rescue. It’s a bad recording: so much hiss. It’s really not any different or better than the previous ones; I can see that it will go into a crooner vocalist after its extremely long introduction. The vocalist is actually better than the last one, but the song still doesn’t do it for me. White male artist.
34. Harry James and His Orchestra “Manhattan Serenade” – Second cover of this tune. It’s going overboard with the different instruments in the introduction. It clearly wants to evoke a Rhapsody in Blue kind of New York feel. Now we have a female vocalist, after only 45 seconds intro. It’s slow, as a serenade would be, and I just don’t find it interesting. White male artist.
35. Bing Crosby “I Don’t Want to Walk without You” – The second of three covers of this tune. The previous one was Dinah Shore, singing from the woman’s POV. Let’s see how Bing does it. YouTube to the rescue. He’s singing over a tinkly guitar. The song translates from female to male perspective perfectly: it’s just about a person who doesn’t want to walk without their other special person. Even so, it’s a crooner, and I’m not that excited. Bing does have a great voice, and that makes it tolerable; maybe that’s the key: you need to have a really good voice to make a crooning song OK. White male artist.
36. Bing Crosby “Miss You” – YouTube to the rescue. Here’s another that Bing and Dinah both covered in 1942! Again, Bing’s voice is great, but I’m not a big fan of crooning songs. I think I can listen all the way through this one, though. I feel guilty because I’ve been dropping out of so many of these crooners. White male artist.
37. The Glenn Miller Orchestra “At Last” – The intro is overly reliant on shrill woodwinds, I think, but it establishes the beat and the main melodic theme early. Now it’s all muted trombones and tinkly percussion. This song can’t seem to make up its mind. After a minute, we get the male vocalist. He’s happy because he met someone. I’m a Glenn Miller fan, but this song isn’t doing it for me: the crooning is too much and the Big Band is too little. White male artist.
38. Kay Kyser and His Orchestra “A Zoot Suit (For My Sunday Gal)” – OK, now we’re talking. This song has a beat and it has happy horns. The happy male vocalist is in before 15 seconds have passed, singing with a patter about the nice zoot suit he’s going to buy so he’ll look nice for his gal. Near the end, we get four part harmony on the vocals. It’s great. I’ll give this one a heart. White male artist.
39. Cab Calloway “Blues in the Night (My Mama Done Tol’ Me)” – I know him from Minnie the Moocher and the Blues Brothers. What was he up to in 1942? Apparently he was up to singing an awesome song with a nice syncopated beat. It’s a blues standard, but given the 1942 Big-Band treatment. I like it and I’ll give it a heart. Maybe Spotify will pull out more Cab Calloway for my daily mixes. Black male artist.
40. Freddy Martin and His Orchestra “Tonight We Love” – Piano solo to start, then a male vocalist sings over top of it. I think this is the Tchaikovsky piano concertio, with the words added, that he had chart in 1941. Yes, it is. So here’s another song I’ve had holdover the charts between the two years, but my Wikipedia research suggests that the version with lyrics charted only in 1942. White male artist.
41. Charlie Spivak and His Orchestra “I Left My Heart At the Stage Door Canteen” – The Spotify version has an intro explaining the context: the Stage Door Canteen was a place in NY for servicemen to get fed. This is a crooner song about a GI who lost his heart to a woman named Eileen, serving him doughnuts at the Stage Door Canteen. Lots of “een” rhymes here, drawn out “Canteeeeeeeen”. It’s not for me. White male artist.
42. Alvino Rey and His Orchestra “Strip Polka” – The first of four covers in 1942. I skipped ahead and listened to the Andrews Sisters version, so I know what I’m getting into here. It, of course, has a polka beat. This version is much more polka-sounding than the Andrews Sisters version. It’s OK, but honestly the Andrews Sisters version is much better. It’s pretty funny, and it belies the story of WWII America as such a morally clean place: this is a song about stripping as a way to be socially mobile, and four versions charted in 1942. There’s nothing really judgmental about her stripping in the song: it’s a way for her to get the money to start her own farm. White male artist.
43. Charlie Spivak and His Orchestra “This Is No Laughing Matter” — Piano and whiny trumpet to open. This recording is clearly of the sort that has little bass, making it very tinny-sounding. The wah-wah trumpet and woodwinds make me think that eventually a crooner will come in with some lyrics. Indeed, but it’s actually a chorus of crooners, in harmony. Now we have a lead, but it’s mostly the harmony. It had about 1:20 instrumental introduction. The words are basically asking the love interest not to tease them while their hearts are broken. It’s not for me. White male artist.
44. Kay Kyser and His Orchestra “Johnny Doughboy Found a Rose in Ireland” – Can I please be done with this song? Oh, good. This is the last of four covers. Trumpet comes in at the start with the melody, backed by a good harmony from the Big Band. I think this is my favorite of the covers of this song, so I understand why it charted the highest. We get the vocals in four-part harmony with male and female voices. It took about 1:30 to get to the vocals. These artists are taking this saccharine tune and actually making something musically interesting from it. I’ll give it a heart. White male artist.
45. Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra “One Dozen Roses” – YouTube to the rescue. Starts with percussion and strong trumpet. The vocals come in quickly and it has a fast pace and nice, non-crooner delivery. It’s more like a ragtime tune, or a jazz piece. It has some similarities to “Old Time Religion” in the melody and beat. I like it. I would heart it, but it’s not on Spotify.
46. Kate Smith “Rose O’Day (The Filla-Ga-Dusha Song)” – YouTube to the rescue. It has a big, swelling intro with trumpets taking the lead and then trading off to trombones, and now saxophones. It’s a female vocalist, singing about an Irish fellow who is in love with an Irish lass, and it has a bunch of lyrics that could be nonsense or may be in Irish. It’s got a bouncy, happy, Irish tune, and I would heart it if it were on Spotify. According to Wikipedia, this tune sold a million copies and was certified gold. White female artist.
47. Dinah Shore “Miss You” – Whiny strings to start, and then Dina comes in after only about ten seconds, so that’s good. She’s singing a weepy song about how her love lives on even though her lover is gone. It’s quality music, but it’s not for me: it’s a pretty standard love serenade. White female artist.
48. The Merry Macs “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition!” – Starts out with snare drums and xylophone. Quickly into the story-song: it’s based on a true story about a chaplain who said the title phrase to support the men firing back during the attack on Peral Harbor. It’s a catchy song and has a humorous take on a serious topic, and it is also a window into the American attitude in 1942. I’ll give it a heart. White male and female artists.
49. Dinah Shore “One Dozen Roses” – This one’s on Spotify. Let’s see if it’s as good as the Glen Gray version. It starts off with a fast ragtime sound, then into slow strings and Dinah’s wonerful voice. Now back to the ragtime syncopated beat. It’s great, and I’ll give it a heart. White female artist.
50. Kay Kyser and His Orchestra “(There’ll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover” – Sounds like a live recording, with applause and a tinny sound. It gets to the male vocalist very quickly. This is a saccharine song, not quite a crooner tune, but it does hammer on the vowel sounds “The shepherd will tend his sheeeeeeep…” “The whiiiiiiite cliffs of Dover…” So no heart from me. This is the penultimate cover of this tune, and the next one is Glenn Miller, so maybe that one will be good. White male artist.
51. Horace Heidt and His Musical Knights “Deep in the Heart of Texas” – YouTube to the rescue. This one is going over the top in making it clear it is a Country Tune. It has clip-clop percussion, rhythmic claps, and a yahoo-ing cowboy laid over the song. Now we have the melody whistled, but the refrain is still sung by the chorus. It’s a bit much, really. Too bad this is Horace Heidt’s only charting song in 1942. White male artist.
52. Freddie Slack and His Orchestra “Cow-Cow Boogie” – Starts with some great piano, then a female vocalist singing in a jazzy mode. OK, this is a great song with Western elements, but they fit in the Big Band, boogie form well. I’ll give it a heart. White male artist.
53. Johnny Mercer “Strip Polka” – The second of four covers in 1942. I really like the song, so hopefully this cover will be good. It’s starting out as before, with a polka sound. It takes a minute to get to the vocals. As a difference, it has some spoken words indicating that you’re about to hear a funny song. I’m glad that Queenie always stops … and always just in time. Strip Polka is one of the wonderful things I’ve discovered walking through the old charts, and I feel vindicated doing it. White male artist.
54. The Glenn Miller Orchestra “Everything I Love” – Horns start out making a statement, rising and falling, setting the mood. Now a chorus is singing wordlessly and the male vocalist comes in, singing a crooning song about how his love is everything to him. It’s musically quite good, but I’m just not a fan of these kinds of songs. That said, I can actually listen all the way through this one. White male artist.
55. The Glenn Miller Orchestra “Juke Box Saturday Night” – Starts out with big notes from the horns, establishing a fast pace. We get the vocals almost immediately, male and female call and response, with a chorus backing them up. This is a great Big Band tune that hints at the sounds that will become Rock and Roll. I’ll give it a heart. White male artist.
56. The Glenn Miller Orchestra “Skylark” – Again, the stage is set immediately, this time by clarinets. Now we have classical guitar, muted trumpets, and maybe some xylophone? It’s a slower, swinging tempo and beat. I like it and I’ll give it a heart. Lots of good work with the clarinets here, mixing in with the other instruments but carrying the melody. The male vocalist comes in just at 1:30, it’s kind of a crooner sound, but the feel is a little tighter than most crooner songs. I think what I don’t like about crooners is the way they use the drawn out vowels to cover for a lack of musicality in the rest of the piece. This track doesn’t really sound like the previous “Skylark” on the 1942 charts. White male artist.
57. The Glenn Miller Orchestra “Sweet Eloise” – Trumpets and woodwinds to start, establishing the melody quickly, then building into some interesting Big Band harmony. It’s a slower pace, but it still has a beat. We get the male vocalist after only 45 seconds. We get some good harmony, and it’s not too croony. I like it and I’ll give it a heart. It’s a love song about Eloise, most of it hyperbole about how natural things aspire to be like her, I think. She seems to be the embodiment of perfection, which would be a high bar to set in a relationship, so maybe it’s not so healthy a love song. White male artist.
58. Five by Freddie Slack and His Orchestra “Mr. Five by Five” – YouTube to the rescue. It gets started in a hurry, establishes a real jazzy sound, with a muted trumpet taking the lead and the rest of the Big Band backing it up. Female vocalist after about 40 seconds, singing about a man who is five feet tall and five feet wide. He sounds like he’s pretty cool. He would wear the short wide armor, I think. White male artist.
59. The Andrews Sisters “Strip Polka” – I jumped ahead to listen to this one, given the title and my appreciation of the Andrews Sisters. It’s clear from the beginning that it really is about what it sounds like: a burlesque dancer who dances to the polka. She’s an upright and honorable stripper, so “She stops… and always just in time.” This is a clever song that is also musically interesting, so I can see why it charted four times in one year. I’ll heart this one. White female artists.
60. The Glenn Miller Orchestra “(There’ll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover” – Starts with muted trumpet, backed by woodwinds. It’s slowly building to the melody, which I recognize now after listening to three other covers. It’s not until 1:10 that we get the male vocalist, singing this song that sounds sad, even though it’s about hope for a better future. I really just don’t like this song, even when Glenn Miller brings his magic. White male artist.
61. Kay Kyser and His Orchestra “Strip Polka” – The last of the covers of this song in 1942. Starts right into the vocals of the song. It still has the polka feel, but it’s more syncopated, and has much more of a Big Band sound. Honestly, this is the best version, and I agree with the American public of 1942 that it should be rated the highest. It gets my heart for Spotify. White male artist.
62. Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra “Take Me” – Whiny strings to start out. It’s setting a very melodramatic mood. Not like the Benny Goodman version, at all. Now it’s on to crooning delivery by a male vocalist, after a minute and a half. No love from me: the Benny Goodman version is much better. White male artist.
63. Woody Herman and His Orchestra “Amen” – Starts right in to tremolo by the trumpets, establishing the tone and attitude. Then we get the melody from the saxophones, supported in call-and-answer style by the rest of the band. It’s very catchy. I’ll give it a heart. Now after 1:35, we get a chorus singing “Amen!” and now onto a solo vocalist singing “Amen!” as though it were a full set of lyrics. Now we get some typical blues lyrics about a two-faced woman, then back to more singing of “Amen!” White male artist.
64. Vaughn Monroe “My Devotion” – Muted trumpets and trombones to start. It sounds like sneaking or hiding music. Now it has unfolded into a waling beat, very subdued. It’s taking forever to get to the vocals. 1:20 is when we get the male vocalist. He’s OK, but he’s no Sinatra. This song is just overall uninspiring. It’s not bad, but it would be good non-distracting background music for a period piece. White male artist.
65. Harry James and His Orchestra “Strictly Instrumental” – Bright horns to start, then into a walking jazz beat. It sounds good, and it’s going on for a long time without any words. Will it be an instrumental? It sounds like it. I’ll give this one a heart. White male artist.
66. Benny Goodman and His Orchestra “Somebody Else Is Taking My Place” – High hat to start, then into a bright, fast tune with good harmony and interplay between the sections. It has a good beat and I like it. Of course the clarinet is excellent. Female vocals after 1:10. She’s singing about somebody taking her place, of course. It’s a bright, happy tune, but the words belie it: this is a dumped lover song. So strange. I’ll give it a heart. White male artist.
67. Russ Morgan “Somebody Else Is Taking My Place” – Now we see the Russ Morgan take on that tune. YouTube to the rescue. It’s slower and has more wah-wah from the band, with a muted trombone doing the sad trombone bit. This one is actually a sad song, but it’s not great. Male vocals after a full 1:30, and they really sound sad. White male artist.
68. Abe Lyman and His Californians “Amen” – YouTube to the rescue. It’s much slower than the last cover of this song. It has some spoken words at the beginning. Then into the faster song that uses “Amen” as the main lyric. Seriously, it’s repeated over and over. It’s not bad now, but that intro was suboptimal. White male artist.
69. Benny Goodman and His Orchestra “Idaho” – Starts strong and fast. It’s better than the Rey version. It’s also on Spotify, so I can give it a heart. It has a deep male voice after 1:00. It’s not sung in a kitschy Western way; it’s more of a crooner laid on top of a solid four Big Band sound. I’ll give it a heart. White male artist.
70. Jimmie Lunceford and His Orchestra “Blues in the Night (My Mama Done Tol’ Me) (Parts 1 & 2)” – Can it be as good as the Cab Calloway version? YouTube to the rescue. Some raunchy sax doing the melody after the big intro. It’s pretty quiet now, just the sax and a little accompaniment. This song is very recognizable and has been covered plenty since. Now, after 1:45 it picks up speed and more harmony comes in. This is a 5:14 track, and I think it will be instrumental. The parts 1 & 2 are the two sides of the record. Side 2 has the vocals, and they are OK. There is a chorus singing the main melody and a falsetto voice answering them sometimes. Really, its only OK, but that may be the quality of the recording I’m getting. Black male artist.
71. Dinah Shore “Blues in the Night” – Now Dinah’s take. Starts with loud, raunchy trumpet setting the melody. We only have to wait 0:25 for Dinah to start singing. It’s great. I’ll give it a heart. Her voice is amazing, and this is a good arrangement to compliment her singing.
72. The Merry Macs “Jingle Jangle Jingle” – Starts with xylophone, then some yippie-ay singing. I thought this was going to be an Xmas song, but it’s about jingling spurs of a cowboy singing he’s happy to be single. It’s very Country Western and I’m not a big fan. White male and female artists.
73. Harry James and His Orchestra “One Dozen Roses” – I liked the previous version. This one starts well, with bright horns backed by the rest of the band in harmony, hitting big notes and big chords. Now it’s very quiet, establishing the melody on the saxophone with stingers from the horns. Now the horns have taken it up with the high-hat and the string bass keeping time. OK, now the whole band is involved, and this is one of the best Big Band tunes I’ve heard so far. Male vocalist after 1:22, good sound, and he’s backed by the string bass. I’ll give this one a heart. White male artist.
74. Swing and Sway with Sammy Kaye “Remember Pearl Harbor” – Starts with military sounding horns, then a male chorus. They’re singing about how Pearl Harbor will be remembered as one of the major historical events of our nation, like the Alamo. It’s pretty much a military song, with a square beat, and it sounds like a typical marching band lineup of instruments, with tubas and piccolos now in the trio section. It’s a march, pretty much. I love marches because of my time in the band, so it gets a heart. White male artist.
75. Bing Crosby “Deep in the Heart of Texas” – Starts with jazzy trumpet and straight to Bing singing this Western song. He’s singing it with a syncopated jazzy beat, and the instruments are more New Orleans than Texas. It’s, honestly, the best version of this song I’ve heard. I’ll give it a heart. White male artist.
76. Swing and Sway with Sammy Kaye “I Left My Heart At the Stage Door Canteen” – Another cover of this song; the last one was a croon fest, so my hopes are low. It starts with a more marching band sound, then straight into the maudlin male vocals. The instruments have gotten very wah-wah now, to the point of almost parody. No love from me. White male artist.
77. Alvino Rey and His Orchestra “Deep in the Heart of Texas” – They really liked this song in 1942, didn’t they? This one sounds like a parody: the male vocalist is singing it like it’s an opera song, then the back up chorus sounds like they’re mailing it in. I’m not going to listen to 4:47 of this. White male artist.
78. Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra “Just As Though You Were Here” – Maudlin strings to start us out. We get the male crooner by 22 seconds in. His vocals are mixed in below the strings. Now we get bright harmony of male and female voices, but it’s just not an inspiring song. White male artist.
79. Spike Jones and His City Slickers “Der Fuehrer’s Face” – OMG I love this song. Everytime I see Nazis on the news now, I think of this song and it reminds me how ridiculous they are. It’s from an Academy Award winning Walt Disney short that features Donald Duck trying to live in a Nazi world, and that’s just as ridiculous as this song. If you find a need to have fart humor and Nazi-bashing at the same time, this song is for you. I give it a heart. White male artist.
80. Harry James and His Orchestra “Mister Five by Five” – YouTube to the rescue. It has a swinging sound from the outset, and I’m pretty happy with it. It has masterful trumpet as you would expect. Now we have a female vocalist after about a minute. Mister Five by Five measures the same in height as in width. He’s square, but the implication is that he can kick your butt. It’s pretty good. I would give it a heart if I could. White male artist.
81. Alvino Rey and His Orchestra “I Said No!” – YouTube to the rescue. This one starts with the female vocalist singing her version. She said “No” and he said “Please”. It goes on for a couple of verses like this, as the man wears her down. YouTube indicates the woman singing is Yvonne King. It’s overall a good song, musically, with solid lyrical structure and a nice instrumental bridge; I just find the subject to be problematic today. This version makes it clearer that the whole song is actually a joke, not about romance, but about subscribing to Liberty Magazine, so I guess it’s OK? Given that, I would give it a heart, were it on Spotify. White male artist.
82. Kay Kyser and His Orchestra “He Wears a Pair of Silver Wings” – Tinkly piano to start, then wah-wah clarinets. This goes on for some time. 1:10 get a male vocalist singing about a guy who makes a lady happy: he taught her hear to fly. It’s a rare thing: a third person love song. It’s got tighter signing than a lot of crooner songs, so I’m OK with it. Overall, though, it’s just not musically interesting enough to like it. White male vocalist.
83. Charlie Spivak and His Orchestra “My Devotion” – Let’s see how good this, the top cover of four in 1942, is. YouTube to the rescue. Big band intro, then on to a sad trumpet playing the melody. Charlie is the trumpeter. Male vocalist after 1:20. It’s a crooner piece, and I’m just not excited by it. “Myyyyy devoootion isn’t just a sudden emooooootion…” White male artist.
84. Harry James and His Orchestra “I Don’t Want to Walk without You” – Wah-wah trumpets to start the piece. We get a female vocalist right about one minute. Honestly, this is musically better than the previous covers of the song. It has good balance between the vocalist and the band, but it’s not an exciting song to me. White male artist.
85. Kay Kyser and His Orchestra “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition!” – OK, I’m ready to be wowed, Kay. It builds slowly to a crescendo with the whole band, led by the trumpets. Now on to the harmony on the title-refrain. It’s really catchy, I admit. It sounds like the men sing the refrain and the women are singing the verses and doing “ahh-ahh” harmony behind the men on the refrain. It does a good job handing the musical themes back and forth between the different sections of the band. I’ll give it a heart. White male artist.
86. Vaughn Monroe “When the Lights Go On Again (All Over the World)” – Starts with low, quiet notes, then the clarinets build and are stung by muted trumpets. It all sounds like it’s painting a picture of folks hiding out from the dangers of the war. Then we get a nice, mellow male vocalist. He’s taking this crooner song and making it solid with the quality of his singing. I’ll give it a heart. White male artist.
87. The Glenn Miller Orchestra “Serenade in Blue” – Glenn Miller is top-heavy on the 1942 charts, with five of the top 15. So this should be a good run. This one starts with runs of notes tossed between sections to set a scene. It sounds like a pastoral scene, and now we get a musical theme coming in from the woodwinds, punctuated by the trumpets and trombones. It’s really all beautiful, and I can hear the blue-ness. Now we have a male vocalist, singing about how he feels when he hears that serenade in blue, so this is a meta-song: it’s a song about itself. Woah. I’ll give it a heart. White male artist.
88. Benny Goodman and His Orchestra “Jersey Bounce” – Oh, boy. I really think we’re in for some good stuff in the top of the charts this year. This one is a classic, that get s a lot of play. It has a very recognizable tune, and I love it. Heart from me. White male artist.
89. Kay Kyser and His Orchestra “Who Wouldn’t Love You” – Starts with whistling. That can’t be good. The mixing is poor, so the vocalist is hidden underneath the whistling. It’s a crooner, so the whistling is a nice change. It sounds like it has knocking on a door as a percussion piece. The pace is good, and the music is good, but I’m not feeling it. Aha! That recording was just very poor. I found another one on Spotify and it’s really good. I’ll give it a heart. It shows how important that remastering can be. White male artist.
90. The Glenn Miller Orchestra “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree (With Anyone else But Me)” – This tune is a well known one, at least to me. It has a nice, solid four beat and the musicality is as great as you would expect from Mr. Miller’s band. The vocals are crisp and mix well with the music. I’ll give it a heart. White male artist.
91. The Glenn Miller Orchestra “A String of Pearls” – Bright trumpets to start us out, backed by piano. Now the saxopohones set the pace with a walking string bass. This is another tune that folks hear a lot, used as atmosphere in 1940s-period dramas. It’s really good and I will give it a heart. It builds and builds in complexity, with the different sections talking back and forth to one another to build the melody. It’s that sort of complexity that I find most satisfying in music. White male artist.
92. Woody Herman and His Orchestra “Blues in the Night (My Mama Done Tol’ Me)” – Starts out with the saxophones playing the melody, with the rest of the band providing good harmony. At 40 seconds in, we get the male vocalist. Not as good as Cab Calloway, I think, but still a good cover. In the end, I think the Cab Calloway and Dinah Shore covers were better, but this one is also good and I’ll give it a heart. White male artist.
93. Kay Kyser and His Orchestra “Jingle Jangle Jingle” – Oh, no. I am not a fan of this song, but I’ll listen to this cover: I like a lot of Kyser’s stuff. Bright trumpets to start, and we get a vocalist right at the outset. Now it’s into the clip-clop Western beat, but it’s ameliorated somewhat by the Big Band sound. I still don’t like this song. White male artist.
94. Jimmy Dorsey and His Orchestra “Tangerine” – Revisiting the tune that also charted at #100 when performed by Vaughan Monroe. Building trumpets and then a series of crescendos, ending in tinkly piano. Then we get a croony male vocalist. This is a better cover, and the vocals are good, but it’s just not my jam. Oh, wait, it breaks into a solid four section after two minutes, and a female vocalist. That part isn’t so bad. White male artist.
95. Harry James and His Orchestra “Sleepy Lagoon” – Tinkly piano to set the stage, now with airy flute and then clarinet. It sounds like it’s introducing a flashback. Now the trumpet is taking the melody. I don’t think there will be vocals on this track. It’s having the sections trade the melody back and forth. It’s OK, but, again, not my jam. White male artist.
96. Harry James and His Orchestra “I Had the Craziest Dream” – Trumpet announcing the melody right from the outset, with spare backing from the rest of the band. It goes on like this for some time. We get female vocals after 1:30. She’s singing a bright, cheery line, but it’s mixed so that the instruments almost drown her out. She’s singing about her crazy dream, that you were in love with her. It’s OK, but not my favorite. White male artist.
97. Bing Crosby “White Christmas” – OK, everyone in the USA probably knows this one. It’s the one song from 1942 that still gets regular play on the radio today. It’s really good, but it’s so seasonal it will probably play havoc with my Spotify auto playlists. Even so, I’m giving it a heart (it was already a favorite of my Xmas lists). According to Wikipedia, he was called “Bing” because that was the sound he would say while shooting finger guns playing cops and robbers. White male artist.
98. Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra “There Are Such Things” – Ooh a harp! Now male and female voices in harmony, with a boom-chick drum backing them, probably with brushes on the snare. Now we get the male lead vocals, it’s pretty croony and I’m not sold on it. It’s better musically than crooner songs low in this chart, but it’s not my jam. It goes on like this for quite some time. It’s another one of those songs you could use for atmosphere without interrupting the conversation in your period movie. White male artist.
99. The Glenn Miller Orchestra “(I’ve Got a Gal In) Kalamazoo” – Bright, happy muted trumpet sets the scene with a solid four beat backing it, good runs from the woodwinds. It has a good beat and feels like it’s going somewhere, now we have unmuted trumpets carrying the tune, trading off with the other horns. Building to the vocals? Yes. Male vocalist. It’s great, sharp singing with good harmony from the chorus. It’s like a clinic. Also, the refrain is “zoo, zoo zoo…” I’ll give it a heart. White male artist.
100. The Glenn Miller Orchestra “Moonlight Cocktail” – OK, what is the #1 song from 1942? Tinkly piano with brushes on the snare to set the scene, then the clarinets come in with harmony to carry the melody through. We’re building sections as we get to the main idea. Back to quiet, then the woodwinds carry us through to the male vocals. He’s singing the recipe for a cocktail made of atmospheric elements: setting the scene for two people to fall in love. It’s all very picturesque, and done with great musicality and crisp vocals. I’ll give it a heart. White male artist.