halfrain via Flickr

The history of Broadway is strewn with odd stories. None could be any odder than “I’ll Be Seeing You.” It became one of the anthems of World War II. It embodied all the feelings of wartime separation and loss. Except it wasn’t composed with the war in mind, or even during the war. In fact, for about five years after its first performance, the public never noticed it.

The songwriting team of Sammy Fain and Irving Kahal produced two musicals in 1938. One, Hellzapoppin, achieved great success but contained no great songs. Right This Way only lasted for 15 performances. But now, two of the songs became hits–often considered the team’s two finest songs.

Fain later joked that a lot of people in the audience didn’t stay for the whole show. When they asked, “Where’s the exit?” the answer was Right This Way.

Somehow, Tommy Dorsey picked one song from it, “I Can Dream, Can’t I?”, to record that same year. It became popular immediately. “I’ll Be Seeing You” had to wait. That neglect upset Kahal very much. He considered it the best song he ever wrote.

Kahal died at the age of 38 in 1942. He must have been aware of one recording, but it never became a hit. As far as he knew, his best song was a flop, just like the show he wrote it for.

Fain wanted to make sure that Kahal’s favorite ballad was performed at his funeral and performed well. He coached the organist for three days to make sure she could do it justice.

I’ll Be Seeing You finally becomes a hit

According to SecondHandSongs, Tamara Draisin sang “I’ll Be Seeing You” in the musical. (She was so famous she was known simply as Tamara.) Dick Todd and His Orchestra issued the first recording in March 1940. It never made the charts.

Frank Sinatra with Tommy Dorsey’s band recorded it later that year but apparently the record company didn’t release it until after Bing Crosby’s number one hit with it in 1944. Jo Stafford, Ann Shelton, and Billy Holiday all issued hit recordings of it later the same year.

Here is Crosby singing it:

After four hit recordings in the same year, “I’ll Be Seeing You” became a standard. So of course it soon became the title song of a hit movie. Later, it appeared in one called Yanks in 1979. It has been recorded by swing bands, folk singers, rockers, and otherwise by people who don’t approach it as a sentimental ballad. That variety pretty much defines a standard: there is no one correct way to do it.

How everyone can identify with the lyrics

World War II soldier. Wikimedia Commons

Fain’s tune is lovely, and some critics hear echoes of the last movement of Mahler’s Third Symphony in it. But all the attention in most writings about the “I’ll Be Seeing You” goes to the lyrics.

The standard Tin Pan Alley song about loss and separation describes the singer’s rejection by a lover. Kahal’s lyric never explains what the relationship was or how it ended. So during the war, with fathers, sons, husbands, etc. overseas, everyone could hear their own separation in the song.

• One young girl, missing her father, wrote that it reminded her that every time she looked at the moon, he could look at the same moon half a world away.
• At least one family had to turn the radio off whenever “I’ll Be Seeing You” came on because it reminded them so painfully of their loss.
• One soldier sang it to his girlfriend over the phone, changing the opening line to “I’ll Be Squeezing You.”
• One wounded soldier heard another wounded soldier singing it on the battlefield as he died.

As usual, Fain and Kahal provided a verse. As usual, most recordings leave it out. Here is a very nice recording by Vera Lynn that includes it.

Cathedral bells were tolling and our hearts sang on;
Was it the spell of Paris or the April dawn?
Who knows if we shall meet again?
But when the morning chimes ring sweet again…

I’ll be seeing you in all the old familiar places
That this heart of mine
Embraces all day through
In that small cafe
The park across the way
The children’s carousel
The chestnut trees, the wishing well
I’ll be seeing you
In every lovely summer’s day
In everything that’s light and gay
I’ll always think of you that way
I’ll find you in the morning sun
And when the night is new
I’ll be looking at the moon
But I’ll be seeing you
I’ll be seeing you
In every lovely summer’s day
In everything that’s light and gay
I’ll always think of you that way
I’ll find you in the morning sun
And when the night is new
I’ll be looking at the moon
But I’ll be seeing you

Sources:

I’ll Be Seeing You – a hugely popular WWII era song about distance love – couldn’t be more timely today / This Is Lower Merion and Narberth. [2020]
I’ll Be Seeing You: Sinatra song of the century #30 / Mark Steyn, Steyn Online. May 11, 2015