Each song or ditty was prefaced by an author's note which indicated the origin and meaning of the song as well as special interest the song had, musical arrangement, and most of the chorus and verses.

When he was fifteen John H. Mercer turned out his first song, a jazzy little thing he called `` Sister Susie, Strut Your Stuff ''.

he collaborated on a song with William Hartman Woodin, who was Secretary of the Treasury, 1932-33.

Karl played well and his favorite song was a Schubert lullaby.

The song, he said, was called `` The Stream's Lullaby '', and when he sang, `` Gute ruh, Gute ruh, Mach't die augen zu, '' there was such longing and such simple sadness that it frightened me.

Later, when I was older, I found the song was part of Schubert's Die Schone Mullerin.

With shout and slow dance, with tears and song, with scream and contortion, the corner group was beset by hysteria and shivering, wailing, shouting, possession of something that seemed like an alien and outside force.

There was one of the new forte-pianos in the room and, as Claire rose to go, he asked her to sing him one song before she left.

There was about that song something incandescent, for this Brahms was Milstein at white heat.

To help him on this religious aspect of primitive jazz he had `` Big '' Miller, as a preacher-singer and Hannah Dean, Gospel-singer, while Oscar Brown Jr., an extremely talented young man, did a slave auctioneer's call, a field-hands' work song, and a beautifully sung Negro lullaby, `` Brown Baby '', which was one of the truly moving moments of the festival.

( Still another song in `` Strike Up The Band '' -- `` I've Got A Crush On You '' -- was retrieved from a 1928 failure, `` Treasure Girl ''.

and the incisive style with which Charlotte Rae delivers the top-drawer Hart lyrics of `` I Blush '', a song that was cut from `` A Connecticut Yankee ''.

it was the theme song of millions of American people, their personal problems no less urgent than those of the government.

Ward died in 1903, not knowing the national stature his music would attain, as the music was only first applied to the song in 1904.

At various times in the more than 100 years that have elapsed since the song was written, particularly during the John F. Kennedy administration, there have been efforts to give " America the Beautiful " legal status either as a national hymn, or as a national anthem equal to, or in place of, " The Star-Spangled Banner ", but so far this has not succeeded.

When Richard Nixon visited China in 1972, this song was played as the welcome music.

Popularity of the song increased greatly following the September 11, 2001 attacks ; at some sporting events it was sung in addition to the traditional singing of the national anthem.

He also performed the song on Red Sox opening day at Fenway Park in 2003, though the game was eventually rained out.

A tradition at one time observed on this day in England was to leave out soul cakes and sing a song for the dead.

The song " The Raven " featured lead vocals by the actor Leonard Whiting, and, according to the 2007 remastered album liner notes, was the first rock song to use a digital vocoder, with Alan Parsons speaking lyrics through it.

In her first song she waved away one encroaching photographer who dared approach the throne unbidden and thereafter the boys with the cameras had to unsheathe their 300 mm. lenses and shoot at extreme range.

They were concept albums, and typically began with an instrumental introduction which faded into the first song, often had an instrumental piece in the middle of the second LP side, and concluded with a quiet, melancholic, or powerful song.

William Walker ( composer ) | William Walker, the composer who first joined John Newton's verses to " New Britain ", to create the song that has become " Amazing Grace "

Common meter hymns were interchangeable with a variety of tunes ; more than twenty musical settings of " Amazing Grace " circulated with varying popularity until 1835 when William Walker assigned Newton's words to a traditional song named " New Britain ", which was itself an amalgamation of two melodies (" Gallaher " and " St. Mary ") first published in the Columbian Harmony by Charles H. Spilman and Benjamin Shaw ( Cincinnati, 1829 ).

It was originally one of between 50 to 70 verses of a song titled " Jerusalem, My Happy Home " that first appeared in a 1790 book called A Collection of Sacred Ballads:

Several editions featuring Newton's first three stanzas and the verse previously included by Harriet Beecher Stowe in Uncle Tom's Cabin were published by Excell between 1900 and 1910, and his version of " Amazing Grace " became the standard form of the song in American churches.

This verse is also featured in William Billing's popular Sacred Harp song " David's Lamentation ", first published in 1778.

Created by the Scottish-born composer, Peter Dodds McCormick, the song was first performed in 1878, but did not gain its status as the official anthem until 1984.

The original song Advance Australia Fair was composed by Peter Dodds McCormick under the pen-name ' Amicus ' ( which means ' friend ' in Latin ), in the late 19th century, and first performed by Andrew Fairfax at a Highland Society function in Sydney on 30 November 1878.

** " ABC " ( Jin song ), Jin's first single off his 4th album " ABC " ( American-born Chinese )

* ABCs ( song ), the first official single by rapper K ' naan on his album Troubadour

In 2010, American dance recording artist Kelis released a song called " Acapella " as the first single from her album Flesh Tone.

In 1997, DJ Gruff dissed Articolo 31 in a track titled 1 vs 2 appearing on the first album of the beatmaker Fritz da Cat, but Articolo 31's lawyers obtained a retraction of the record, and its reissue without the song.

In 1986, she scored her first Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 song in a duet with Peter Cetera, " The Next Time I Fall ".

During 1976, Grant wrote her first song (" Mountain Man "), performed in public for the first time — at Harpeth Hall School — the all-girls school she attended, recorded a demo tape for her parents with church youth-leader Brown Bannister, then later when Bannister was dubbing a copy of the tape, Chris Christian, the owner of the recording studio, heard the demo and called Word Records.

" Find a Way ", from Unguarded, became the first Christian song to hit Billboard's Top 40 list, also reaching No. 7 on the Adult Contemporary chart.

Amy Grant scored her first Billboard No. 1 song in 1986 with " The Next Time I Fall ", a duet with former Chicago singer / bassist Peter Cetera.

The song was first copyrighted in 1835 by the Boston-based music publisher Charles Bradlee, and given the title " The A. B. C., a German air with variations for the flute with an easy accompaniment for the piano forte ".

Benny Andersson has written music to several films for screen and television ; the first attempt in the early 1970s for the obscure Swedish movie The Seduction Of Inga: the film flopped, but the ' Björn & Benny ' single " She's My Kind Of Girl " surprised the composers by being released in Japan and becoming a Top 10 hit ( the song renamed in Japan as " The Little Girl Of The Cold Wind ").

All four versions were marketed to distinct types of audiences thereby assuring its place as a pop song.

Finally, the Quadra is a song where the same verse is repeated four times, either three singer verses followed by one chorus response, or one verse and one response.

" For the next two years, she had a number of solo hits – including her signature song " Coat of Many Colors " ( number four in 1971 ) – in addition to her duets.

In the first instance, Will Smith's character sings the song after he and cousin Carlton Banks are thrown into prison ( Smith sings the first two lines, Banks sullenly providing the refrain, then a prisoner sings the final four lines in an operatic voice.

In 2001, the Guinness Book of World Records awarded Brutal Truth the record for " Shortest Music Video " for 1994's " Collateral Damage " ( the song lasts four seconds ).

In a more recent example of Indian-British fusion, Laura Marling along with Mumford and Sons collaborated in 2010 with the Dharohar Project on a four song EP.

A song off the album, " Saltwater ", reached number six in the UK and topped the Australian singles charts for four weeks.

At the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards, the creative music video for " Virtual Insanity " won four awards ; Best Video, Best Special Effects, Best Cinematography, and Breakthrough Video, and the band performed the song at the ceremony.

Some early Led Zeppelin concerts lasted more than four hours, with expanded and improvised live versions of their song repertoire.

* In the music video for the song " The Name of the Game " by the Swedish pop group ABBA, the four members of the group are shown playing Fia-spel.

Although four songs were released as singles to promote the album ( lead single " Everything I Need ", " Man With Two Hearts ", " Maria ", and " Hard Luck Story "), only the first song charted in the US, and that only at No. 47.

( Taras Shevchenko is especially notable for the fact all four members of the group have left the stage before the final song (" Temptation ") comes to an end.

The same technique is also noted in the book How to Rap, where diagrams are used to show how the lyrics line up with the beat – " stressing a syllable on each of the four beats gives the lyrics the same underlying rhythmic pulse as the music and keeps them in rhythm ... other syllables in the song may still be stressed, but the ones that fall in time with the four beats of a bar are the only ones that need to be emphasized in order to keep the lyrics in time with the music ".

The song and video became one of the biggest hits of the ' 80s, reaching number four on the Hot 100, and cemented Run – D. M. C.

The song is structured with four verses and a bridge, and uses a complex compound meter.

The lyrics of the song are written in four verses and a bridge and sung by Desirée.

Fleetwood Mac's second album after the incorporation of Nicks and Buckingham, 1977's Rumours, produced four US Top 10 singles ( including Nicks's song " Dreams ", which was the band's first and only US number one ) and remained at No. 1 on the American albums chart for 31 weeks, as well as reaching the top spot in various countries around the world.

The sample, four looping chords taken from a few seconds of Lansky's piece, provides the entire harmony for the song.

During this period, Stravinsky composed three further works for the Ballets Russes — Petrushka, a ballet in four scenes ( 1911 ), the two-part ballet The Rite of Spring ( 1913 ) and his ' ballet with song ' in one act, Pulcinella ( 1920 ).

The song made the top 10 in many countries, topped the Australian ARIA Charts for seven consecutive weeks, and was the band's first number one single in the United States where it topped the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks.

The band, now revitalised by the response to Live Aid — a " shot in the arm " Roger Taylor called it, — and the ensuing increase in record sales, ended 1985 by releasing the single " One Vision ", which was the first time since " Stone Cold Crazy " that all four bandmembers received a writing credit for the one song.

It contains the vocals of the four actors performing in the film with the only piece of music heard throughout the entire album is a song titled " Virginia Woolf Rock " that plays while Martha and Nick are dancing ( but plays a little differently than it does in the film ).

The consort song, which was the most popular form of vernacular polyphony in England in the third quarter of the sixteenth century, was a solo song for a high voice ( often sung by a boy ) accompanied by a consort of four consort instruments ( normally viols ).