He retained credit for writing the music, but we wrote it together. Chaplin as the Little Tramp in “Modern Times,” 1936, his last silent film.ĭAVID RAKSIN: The song “Smile” came from Chaplin’s film Modern Times. But his job was saved, he said, by none other than the legendary film composer Alfred Newman, the uncle of Randy Newman. He even included the fact that, like all those who served in the role of Charlie’s “musical secretary,” he was ultimately fired before his work was complete.
SMILE LYRICS FULL
Never before had he shared the full details of “Smile” and its origins, until this interview. He was surprised and pleased by my great love and fascination with Chaplin, and he generously shared all details of their work together, including accounts of their daily trips to Musso & Frank’s Grill for lunch, making up ditties about the Irish stew on their way. I had the good fortune to interview Raksin in 1999 for my book Hollywood Remembered. After retiring, he taught film-scoring at USC, UCLA and spent many years writing his immense auto-biography, The Bad and the Beautiful: My Life in a Golden Age of Film Music. Called “the grandfather of film composers,” he died in 2004 at the age of 92. Yet there was another contributor who is forever overlooked when this song is discussed, and that is David Raksin. It’s a standard almost always attributed, if at all, to Chaplin, rarely mentioning the careful craft of Turner and Parsons, who discovered and developed its essence as a beautifully lyrical song. They wrote the lyrics, wisely relying on the beloved spirit and image of Chaplin’s Little Tramp, who often laughed in the face of sorrow, and they created what became a standard. The song itself was the brilliant creation of the songwriters John Turner and Geoffrey Parsons, who adapted that melodic theme from the movie, changing it somewhat, and turned it into a song. That didn’t happen until 1954, some eighteen years after Modern Times, which was Chaplin’s last silent movie, was released. Neither Chaplin nor Raksin ever intended that music to be used as a song. As he explains in the following account, he was “the co-author of that score.” The composer David Raksin, who went on to write hundreds of scores himself, and also famous songs such as “Laura,” had this job on Modern Times. īut although Chaplin received all credit for the score, he relied on the service of a “musical secretary” to translate his ideas into an orchestral score. The song “Smile” was adapted from the heartbreaking theme in Chaplin’s score to his 1936 film Modern Times. And for silent films, which had no dialogue, these were lengthy scores.
SMILE LYRICS MOVIE
Most recently came a 1959 rendition by the iconic comic Jimmy Durante, known more for his big schnozz than his music, which was used in the 2019 movie Joker, starring Joaquin Phoenix.Ĭharlie Chaplin not only wrote, directed and starred in his own films, he also composed their scores. His brothers performed it in his honor at his funeral. Michael Jackson said often it was his favorite song, and recorded it himself in a beautifully reverent, orchestral version. Judy Garland’s heartrending performances of it in 1963 on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and elsewhere resonated through the darkness of that year and beyond. It’s now of America’s most famous songs, recorded originally by Nat “King” Cole, who had the first hit with his 1955 recording. In this, the full account of its origins, as expanded with an interview conducted with the composer David Raksin, who worked with Chaplin, is the whole story behind the song “Smile.” In fact, Chaplin did write the song, indirectly.
“Smile.” Most people know the song, and many know it as “the song Charlie Chaplin wrote.”ĭid Chaplin write it? Was he even a songwriter? “Smile, though your heart is aching, smile, even though it’s aching…” It’s a beloved standard. The entire story behind the lengthy creation of a beloved standard
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