A Perfect Day (song)

"A Perfect Day" (first line: "When you come to the end of a perfect day") is a parlor song written by Carrie Jacobs-Bond (1862–1946) in 1909 at the Mission Inn, Riverside, California.[1] Jacobs-Bond wrote the lyrics after watching the sun set over Mount Rubidoux from her 4th-floor room. She came up with the tune three months later while touring the Mojave Desert.[2] For many years the Mission Inn played "A Perfect Day" on its carillon at the end of each day.[3]

Front cover of "A Perfect Day" for low voice

Popularity

"A Perfect Day" was phenomenally successful when first published in 1910.[4] Eight million copies of the sheet music and five million recordings sold within a year;[5] 25 million copies of the sheet music sold during Jacobs-Bond's lifetime, and many millions of recordings circulated as various artists performed the song on the fast-growing means of audio duplication.[6] It was her most-requested number when Jacobs-Bond entertained the soldiers at U.S. Army camps in Europe during World War I. The popularity of "A Perfect Day" became so rampant that even Jacobs-Bond indicated in her autobiography that she had "tired" of hearing it. Along with "Just Awearyin' for You"[7] and "I Love You Truly"—both published in 1901 as part of the collection Seven Songs as Unpretentious as the Wild Rose—"A Perfect Day" augmented Jacobs-Bond's career as the first woman who made a living from composing.[8]

According to "Backstairs At the White House" by former White House seamstress Lillian Rogers Parks, "A Perfect Day" was the favorite song of First Lady Florence Harding. She often had it played at White House concerts.

"A Perfect Day" was in the ship's songbook when RMS Titanic made its fatal maiden voyage in 1912.[9]

"A Perfect Day" Is considered by many to be the unofficial theme song of the browser role-play game "Titanic Voyage"

Artists

"A Perfect Day" has been frequently recorded in English. Otto Leisner's Norwegian translation was popularized by Sissel Kyrkjebø.

In English

Besides the plaintive 1915 McKee Trio instrumental rendition linked in this article, "A Perfect Day" has been recorded by numerous artists from various backgrounds, including David Bispham,[10] Bing Crosby (recorded December 13, 1950),[11] Evan Williams, Clara Butt,[12] Norwegian–American Eleanor Olson, Nelson Eddy, Jeanette MacDonald, Italian-American Rosa Ponselle,[13] Blue Mountains Trio,[14] Virgil Fox (organ only),[15] Peggy Balensuela (singer) and William Hughes (piano),[16] African Americans Mahalia Jackson[17] and Paul Robeson, Swedish American Alan Lindquest, Englishmen John McHugh and Webster Booth, Austria's Richard Tauber, Australia's Judith Durham,[18] The Fureys (Ireland),[19] Germany's Annah Graefe,[20] Scotland's Moira Anderson[21] and English baritone Sir Thomas Allen accompanied by Scottish Malcolm Martineau[22] as well as Scotsman Sydney MacEwan.[23] Jo Stafford and Gordon MacRae recorded the song as a duet.[24] On the screen accompanied by Barbara Stanwyck at the piano, Sterling Holloway sang "A Perfect Day" in the 1940 feature film Remember the Night.[25] In 1945 German-American opera soprano Helen Traubel recorded an andante interpretation.[26] In the 1940s Alfredo Antonini and his orchestra collaborated with Victoria Cordova and John Serry Sr. to record the song for Muzak.[27] In 1962 Norma Zimmer sang "A Perfect Day" in response to thousands of requests on the Lawrence Welk Show.[28]

In Norwegian ("En deilig dag")

Danish journalist Otto Leisner (1917–2008) translated "A Perfect Day" into Norwegian as "En deilig dag"; this translation has been recorded by, among others, Sissel Kyrkjebø.[29]

Character

"A Perfect Day" exemplifies the sentimentality popular in the late Victorian and post-Victorian era but has risen above such a sequestered view by nuances of studied reflection which, combined with the chord progressions of Jacobs-Bond's tune, have borne its appeal across time and cultural boundaries. "A Perfect Day" persists as an elegy using the analogy of the end of day as the end of life.[30]

In 1929, at Lake Arrowhead, California, with "A Perfect Day" playing on a phonograph, Jacobs-Bond's only child, Frederick Jacobs Smith, committed suicide.[31]

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Notes
  1. The place is indicated in a line inserted above the title on p. 3 of the high voice (soprano) edition published in 1938 by the Boston Music Company; this version is in the key of C.
  2. Reublein, "America's first great woman popular song composer" site.
  3. Mission Inn Museum Jacobs-Bond site. Archived 2009-07-06 at the Wayback Machine The Mission Inn maintains a Carrie Jacobs-Bond Suite. Archived 2010-02-14 at the Wayback Machine
  4. When first published in 1910 by Carrie Jacobs-Bond & Son in Chicago, it came out in transcriptions for high voice (soprano, tenor) in the key of A-flat and low voice (contralto, bass) in the key of F. Later, a medium-voice (low soprano / high alto, baritone) transcription appeared, in the key of G. Publication information and the sheet music (including notes and lyrics) are part of the Lester S. Levy Collection of the Johns Hopkins University Peabody Institute, online at Johns Hopkins University site (accessed 2009 September 03).
  5. Library of Congress Jacobs-Bond site.
  6. "Janesville". Wisconsin Hometown Stories. 2008-01-17. Wisconsin Public Television. WPNE-TV. Cf. Jacobs-Bond on Answers.com.
  7. For which Frank Lebby Stanton wrote the lyrics.
  8. See the sources in the articles on "I Love You Truly" and Carrie Jacobs-Bond. Peggy DePuydt appropriated the song title for her biography of Jacobs-Bond—A Perfect Day: Carrie Jacobs-Bond, the Million-Dollar Woman (New York: Golden Book Publisher, 2003), 334 pp., ISBN 978-1-58898-915-4. The copyright expired in 1963 (Information on the Inetgiant site Archived 2010-02-12 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved February 10, 2010.).
  9. White Star Line Song Book. Liverpool: R.M.S. TITANIC. 1912. "A Perfect Day" was the second item in the book.
  10. Jacobs-Bond was apparently enamoured of Bispham's circulation of the song. When Jacobs-Bond published "A Perfect Day" in 1910 she added the header "As sung by Mr. David Bispham" above the title (the header appears on p. 3 of the sheet music). She retained the statement in a 1938 republication of the song (with the imprint indicating the Boston Music Company as the sole-selling agents but also explicitly citing Carrie Jacobs-Bond & Son Incorporated, then of Hollywood, California) even though by that time numerous others had recorded it.
  11. "A Bing Crosby Discography". BING magazine. International Club Crosby. Retrieved September 13, 2017.
  12. Nimbus Records, Rel. 2 (2004), Columbia Record on YouTube.
  13. Who recorded the song with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Josef Pasternack conducting. See Nimbus Records, No. 17.
  14. In Music for Grand Dining, 2005, with Gustaw Joseph Szelski (violin), Gavin Tipping (piano), & Georg Mertens-Moussa (cello), ASIN B001121MUI.
  15. EMI Classics, 1996 April 23.
  16. Songs of Carrie Jacobs-Bond: Songs My Grandmother Taught Me, Albany Records, 2001, ASIN B000QZWB1K.
  17. "A Perfect Day". 1930s. Retrieved 2013-12-31.
  18. Durham, Judith (1970). "When you come to the end of a perfect day". Meet Judith Durham [television special]. London. Event occurs at 0:44. Retrieved 2011-04-03.
  19. "25th Anniversary Album". Archived from the original on 2009-04-19. Retrieved 2009-08-22.
  20. Also known by the stagename Tink.
  21. Voice to Remember, Universal/Spectrum, 2004. See SHOF Jacobs-Bond recordings site. Archived 2011-05-14 at the Wayback Machine
  22. More Songs My Father Taught Me (London: Hyperion, 2003).
  23. MacEwan's rendition on YouTube comes third on the site. Other versions: McHugh on YouTube, MacDonald on YouTube, Williams on YouTube, Ponselle on YouTube, Robeson on YouTube, Eddy on YouTube, Tauber on YouTube (5:56 in), Graefe on YouTube, Booth on YouTube. A snippet of Lindquest's version (recorded at a 1940 San Francisco exhibition featuring George M. Cohan, Irving Berlin, and other luminaries of music), with Jacobs-Bond herself at the piano, is available as "A Perfect Day" from Parlor Songs.com; Archived 2010-11-27 at the Wayback Machine as Rick Reublein observes at "America's First Great Woman Popular Song Composer" Jacobs-Bond's intro is more spirited than the overly andante cadence to which Lindquest wants to sing the song, but she dutifully gets into sync with him.
  24. "A Perfect Day". 1962. Retrieved 2013-12-31.
  25. Holloway's rendition on YouTube. In the film Holloway calls the song "In the End of a Perfect Day"; "The End of a Perfect Day" and "At the End of a Perfect Day" are vernacular titles.
  26. Traubel's 1945 rendition on YouTube.
  27. Victoria Cordova and The Alfredo Antonini Orchestra perform "A Perfect Day" as archived at the Library of Congress Online Catalog on catalog.loc.gov
  28. Zimmer, Norma (1970). "The Lawrence Welk Show: End Of A Perfect Day". Lawrence Welk Show. Retrieved 2011-04-03.
  29. "En deilig dag" on YouTube ("A Perfect Day"), translation into Norwegian by Otto Leisner, sung by Sissel Kyrkjebø. See also the Norwegian article.
  30. Benjamin Robert Tubb displays the complete lyrics of "A Perfect Day" and a midi file of the tune on his "Music of Carrie Jacobs-Bond (1862-1946)" site.
  31. Rick Reublein, "America's First Great Woman Popular Song Composer" site. The death of her only child affected Jacobs-Bond profoundly. She dedicated her 1940 book of poetry, The End of the Road, to him. Jacobs-Bond, Carrie (1940). Palmer, Jamie (ed.). The End of the Road. Hollywood, CA: George Palmer Putnam. ISBN 1-4191-2942-2.p. iii.
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