Let's Sing a Song About the Moonlight

Four popular songs about moonlight are presented, including their origins and as sing-a-longs. In 1909, songwriter Edward Madden worked as an undercover government agent in New York's rough and tumble Tenderloin District, which is in stark contrast to his lyrics for "By the Light of the Silvery Moon", the lyrics which were set to music by Gus Edwards. Three years later, Madden would pen the lyrics to what is now the popular barbershop standard "Moonlight Bay". Southerner James Allen Bland wrote many songs depicting the simple life of the south, including "In the Evening By the Moonlight". And an already popular 1908 penned song was made even more famous and popular with the movie of the same name, Shine on Harvest Moon (1944), the title song which was sung by Ann Sheridan and Dennis Morgan portraying the song's writers, Nora Bayes and Jack Norworth.