The song Blue Skies was composed in 1926 as an addition to the Rodgers and Hart musical Betsy. Although the show ran for only 39 performances, "Blue Skies" was an instant success, with audiences on opening night demanding 24 encores of the piece from star Belle Baker. During the final repetition, Ms. Baker forgot her lyrics, prompting Berlin to sing them from his seat in the front row.
According to Philip Furia and Michael Lasser, the song was added at the last minute, and it was thanks to a panicky phone call from vaudevillian Belle Baker to Berlin, who complained that the score lacked a ‘Belle Baker song.’ They also write: “Berlin resented the interpolation of songs by other composers into the score of his shows, but he must have been delighted at the chance to work one of his songs into a score by the young songwriting team who were already being compared to Gilbert and Sullivan.”
Ella Fitzgerald's version is 3 minutes and 24 seconds. So if Belle Baker sang the chorus 24 times without the introduction, perhaps it is somewhere between one and 2 minutes x 24. Wouldn't that have been somewhere between a half to almost one hour of Blue Skies? Now that was sheer joy and optimism in 1926 - when we look at the lyrics of the chorus, it is understandable.
Blue skies, smilin' at me
Nothin' but blues skies do I see
Bluebirds singin' a song
Nothin' but bluebirds all day long
Never saw the sun shining so bright
Never saw things looking so right
Noticing the days hurryin' by
When you're in love, my how they fly
Blue days, all of them gone
Nothin' but blue skies from now on
Never saw the sun shining so bright
Never saw things looking so right
Noticing the days hurryin' by
When you're in love, oh how they fly
Blue days, all of them gone
Nothin' but blue skies from now on
You know your Maples now: here's an anatomically correct Sugar Maple on the Muskoka Chair.
The Canadian Flag has the Sugar Maple Leaf on it - it is our native species. Not the Norway Maple - it is our invasive species. They are differently shaped, as covered by the Globe and Mail on the weekend. The Globe had pictures of the two configurations and showed who used which one. Air Canada uses the Norway Maple shape is represented.
I did a bit of searching - there are lots of maple leaves used on logos. There's a maple leaf on the Canadian Tire logo - it looks like a Sugar Maple. There's a tiny Sugar Maple on the McDonald's Arches.
The Globe pointed out the continuing embarrassment - the 20 dollar bill, released in 2013 and immediately became the subject of criticism for being like a Norway Maple. Here's the response:
"The central bank said the image on the new bills was purposefully designed not to represent any specific species but rather to be a combination of various kinds. “It is not a Norway maple leaf. It is a stylized maple leaf and it is what it ought to be,” said Bank of Canada currency spokesman Julie Girard. Jan 18, 2013"
Most entertaining for me is the Maple Leaf Hockey team maple leaf logo. It has its own world altogether. It was a 47-point Maple Leaf when it debuted in 1928. The latest: "The leaf, now with 31-points, is a nod to the opening of the Maple Leaf Gardens in 1931 (the old one had 35 points), while the 17 veins represent when the team was founded (the 13 veins at the top of the crest alone also signify the team’s Stanley Cup wins)."
So here's the Sugar Maple on the left and the Norway Maple on the right. You can see the difference. There are lots of logos to look at to check which one they use. One way to tell when you are next to each tree? A Norway Maple has white sap and a Sugar Maple has clear sap. Find out more differences HERE.
And our pictures today show the difference between Charles Daly Park this weekend vs a few years ago. The lagoon isn't very separated from the lake. All the trees were taken down. A stone retaining wall was put in at the east end. Last season the shoreline was flooded and closed. The cost of remediation along Lake Ontario's Niagara shores was $1.6 million. I looked at the narrow band of sand on Saturday and wonder how it will look in a few months. There is such shifting sand in Lake Ontario - there may be a sandy shore returned or no walk way left at all.
