Irving Berlin Program Notes and Sheet Music

He wrote over 1,500 songs, including the unofficial national anthem and the best-selling Christmas song of all time. His music was the soundtrack for American life for more than half a century. Yet, the man who composed all of it, Irving Berlin, could not read music, could not write music, and could only play the piano in one key—the key of F-sharp major, using primarily the black keys. Armed with a special transposing piano and a head full of endless melodies, this Russian immigrant with little formal education became the most successful and beloved songwriter in American history. His life was not just a rags-to-riches story; it was the story of the American Dream set to music.

From a Siberian Shtetl to Tin Pan Alley

He was born Israel Beilin on May 11, 1888, in a small Jewish shtetl in Siberia. His earliest memory was of sitting on a blanket by the side of a road at the age of five, watching his family’s home burn to the ground during a government-sanctioned pogrom. Seeking safety and opportunity, the family fled, eventually making the arduous journey to America in 1893. They settled in a crowded tenement on the Lower East Side of New York City.

Life was a struggle. After his father died when Israel was just thirteen, he took to the streets to help his family survive, selling newspapers and singing popular songs on street corners for pennies. He soon found work as a singing waiter in the saloons of the Bowery and Chinatown. It was here, surrounded by the raw, energetic, and diverse sounds of the city, that his musical education truly began. In 1907, while working at the Pelham Cafe, he co-wrote lyrics for his first published song, “Marie from Sunny Italy,” earning a royalty of 33 cents. To avoid associating a sentimental Italian tune with his Jewish name, he was credited as “I. Berlin.” The name stuck.

The Man Who Couldn't Read Music

Berlin quickly moved to the epicenter of the American music industry: a stretch of West 28th Street known as Tin Pan Alley. He got a job as a staff lyricist for a publishing house, but he was brimming with his own melodies. His lack of formal training was a major obstacle. He couldn’t write down the tunes he heard in his head. His solution was to hire a “musical secretary” or arranger, to whom he would hum or sing his melodies and dictate his lyrics.

To compose at the piano, he bought a special instrument equipped with a lever that could instantly change the key. By depressing the lever, he could hear how his F-sharp melodies would sound in any other key, while his hands never had to leave the comfortable black keys. This unique method, which he used his entire life, freed him from the conventions of musical theory and allowed his natural, intuitive melodic genius to flourish. In 1911, that genius exploded onto the national scene with “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.” The song sparked a global dance craze and made Irving Berlin a household name.

Defining the American Songbook

Throughout the 1910s and 1920s, Berlin’s output was staggering. He wrote hit after hit, including sentimental ballads, syncopated dance tunes, and “novelty” songs. A shrewd businessman, he opened his own music publishing company, giving him complete creative and financial control over his work. He also became a major force on Broadway, writing scores for the legendary Ziegfeld Follies and creating his own series of Music Box Revues, which were staged in a theater he co-owned.

His contemporaries were some of the most sophisticated composers of the age, like Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, and Cole Porter. While they were known for their complex harmonies and witty, intricate rhymes, Berlin’s great gift was for simplicity. He wrote for the common person, crafting melodies that were easy to sing and remember, with lyrics that spoke to universal feelings of love, loss, hope, and patriotism. Jerome Kern once famously remarked, "Irving Berlin has no place in American music—he is American music."

Patriotism, Holidays, and Hollywood

In 1918, while serving in the U.S. Army at Camp Upton, Berlin wrote a song for a soldier revue called “God Bless America.” He ultimately decided its solemn tone didn’t fit the comedic show and put it in a drawer. Twenty years later, with war once again looming in Europe, he decided to revise it. He gave the song to the popular singer Kate Smith, who debuted it on her radio show for Armistice Day in 1938. It became an instant sensation, a second national anthem that offered hope and unity in a time of fear. Berlin signed over all royalties for the song to the Boy and Girl Scouts of America in perpetuity.

Four years later, he would write the song that became his biggest-ever hit. For the 1942 film Holiday Inn, starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, he was tasked with writing a song for every major holiday. For Christmas, he penned a gentle, nostalgic ballad about a snowy landscape that tapped into the longing of soldiers stationed overseas. That song was “White Christmas.” Bing Crosby’s recording became the best-selling single of all time, a record it still holds. Berlin’s simple melody perfectly captured the secular, sentimental magic of the holiday.

Conquering Broadway: Annie Get Your Gun

After devoting his efforts during World War II to writing the all-soldier musical This Is the Army, Berlin returned to Broadway in 1946 with what would be his greatest theatrical triumph. The famed composer Jerome Kern had died suddenly while preparing to write the score for a new musical about the life of sharpshooter Annie Oakley. The show's producers, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, turned to the only other songwriter they felt was capable of the job: Irving Berlin.

Though initially hesitant, Berlin read the script and, in a single weekend, wrote several of the show’s biggest hits, including “Doin’ What Comes Natur’lly” and “You Can’t Get a Man with a Gun.” The resulting show, Annie Get Your Gun, starring the powerhouse singer Ethel Merman, was a colossal success. It was packed with more hit songs than almost any musical before or since, including “Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better),” “I Got the Sun in the Morning,” and the ultimate anthem for all performers, “There’s No Business Like Show Business.”

An American Institution

Berlin wrote his final Broadway show, Mr. President, in 1962. Afterwards, he quietly retired from public life. He spent his final decades in his New York home, managing his vast catalog of songs and enjoying his family, having been happily married to Ellin Mackay for 62 years. He eschewed interviews and appearances, preferring to let his life’s work speak for itself.

Irving Berlin died in his sleep on September 22, 1989, at the age of 101. The lights of Broadway were dimmed in his honor. The boy who arrived in America with nothing left behind a body of work that is woven into the very fabric of the nation’s culture. From holiday celebrations to presidential campaigns, from Hollywood blockbusters to Broadway stages, his melodies remain the simple, honest, and enduring voice of the American people.

Section 4: References and Further Reading

• Bergreen, Laurence. As Thousands Cheer: The Life of Irving Berlin. Da Capo Press, 1996.

• Furia, Philip. Irving Berlin: A Life in Song. Schirmer Books, 1998.

• Barrett, Mary Ellin. Irving Berlin: A Daughter's Memoir. Limelight Editions, 2000.

• Irving Berlin: An American Song (Documentary). A&E Biography.