"MIDNIGHT SUN" (1947)

Johnny Mercer collaborated with a car radio to write the lyrics for "Midnight Sun." The music had been composed by Lionel Hampton and Sonny Burke in 1947 and Mercer added the words seven years later in 1954. He heard the instrumental on his car radio while driving along a California freeway. He was so captivated by the melody that he drove into a gas station, called the radio station and said, "This is Johnny Mercer. Would you mind playing that again? I love it." Committing the melody to his extraordinary memory, he composed the lyrics as he drove from Palm Beach to Hollywood.

The difficulties presented by the melody make this songwriting feat even more amazing. Philip Furia and William Lasser in their book America’s Songs describe how "Midnight Sun" would tax the skill of even an accomplished songwriter, "The melody posed one of the most difficult challenges to a lyricist: coming up with a triple set of "feminine rhymes," two-syllable rhymes where the accent falls on the first syllable. Yet Mercer said these were the first rhymes to pop into his mind: "Your lips were like a red and ruby chalice…the clouds were like an alabaster palace….each star its own aurora borealis." Despite the haphazard manner of collaboration, words and music form a seamless whole. "I know of no lyric in the world of popular music," (record producer) Ken Barnes observed, "in which so many unwieldy and alien elements have been so cleverly fused to form a natural union."

Lionel Hampton, best known as a vibraphonist and bandleader, composed more than 200 songs, including the jazz standards "Flying Home" and "Evil Gal Blues" along with "Midnight Sun." He rose to musical prominence as a member of the Benny Goodman Quartet that included Teddy Wilson and Gene Krupa. It was one of the first racially integrated groups of jazz musicians to record and play before wide audiences. His collaborator Sonny Burke, also a vibraphonist and bandleader, arranged and composed for bands, television and films. His most notable work was for the Disney animated film Lady and the Tramp.

"Midnight Sun" was first recorded by the Lionel Hampton Orchestra in 1947 for Decca Records, achieving some popularity as a jazz instrumental. After Johnny Mercer added the words, it became a favorite of singers. June Christy made one of the earliest vocal recordings in 1954, but the song came to be closely associated with Ella Fitzgerald, who recorded it several times, including with the Paul Weston Orchestra in 1957 and again with Oscar Peterson and Ray Brown in 1975. Her best known version may be the one with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra in 1964, which appeared on Fitzgerald’s only songbook album to concentrate on the works of a lyricist, Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Johnny Mercer Songbook on the Verve label. She recorded six other songbook albums, but all featured the works of composers.

By the 1950s the heyday of Tin Pan Alley was over, and the rising popularity of rock and roll and country music had limited the market for Johnny Mercer’s songwriting talent. Frequently working without a collaborator, he set words to instrumentals like "Autumn Leaves" and "Glow Worm," European songs of proven popularity aboard. The way he wrote the "Midnight Sun" lyrics typified the creative isolation of his later years. "The West Coast setting, the car, the lyricist reduced to working with his composers via radio – how far removed from the bustling music publishing houses that once lined Tim Pan Alley," Philip Furia observed in The Poets of Tin Pan Alley. Furia goes on to say, "It’s as if the lyric itself is a midnight sun, a last blaze of an Alley style extinguishing itself along with the Broadway stage and Hollywood studios its songs once had fueled."

Although Mercer’s lyrical genius temporarily may have been eclipsed, today he is regarded by many as the best of jazz lyricists. Paul Zollo writing for www.bluerailroad.com stated, "Even the greatest songwriters tended to think of him in another league. His name became a symbol for a standard of excellence in songwriting, as in, "Yeah, I'm a good songwriter. I'm no Johnny Mercer, but I'm good." Some said he was more than a great lyricist, that he was a poet. Others, such as Sammy Cahn, disagreed. "Mercer was no poet," Sammy said. "Shakespeare was a poet. But Shakespeare was no Johnny Mercer!" Even songwriters who emerged in the lyrically-expansive wake of Dylan and The Beatles point to Mercer as the master. When the late Harry Nilsson was asked who he felt was the greatest lyricist of all, his answer was immediate and absolute. "Johnny Mercer," he said. "Anyone who can rhyme ‘aurora borealis’ with ‘red and ruby chalice’ is not bad."

"MIDNIGHT SUN"
by Lionel Hampton, Sonny Burke and Johnny Mercer

Your lips were like a red and ruby chalice,
Warmer than the summer night.
The clouds were like an alabaster palace,
Rising to a snowy height.
Each star its own aurora borealis,
Suddenly you held me tight,
I could see the midnight sun.

I can't explain the silver rain that found me,
Or was that a moonlit veil?
The music of the universe around me,
Or was that a nightingale?
And then your arms miraculously found me,
Suddenly the sky turned pale,
I could see the midnight sun.

Was there such a night?
It's still a thrill I don't quite believe;
But after you were gone
There was still some stardust on my sleeve!

The flame of it may dwindle to an ember,
And the stars forget to shine,
And we may see the meadow in December,
Icy white and crystalline.
But oh, my darlin', always I'll remember
When your lips were close to mine,
And I saw the midnight sun.