Participants in New York City’s Easter Parade, 2007 / Wikimedia Commons

Revised April 9, 2022

Perhaps the most popular Easter song in the English language, “Easter Parade” started out with completely different words. In 1917, Berlin wrote “Smile and Show Your Dimple” to cheer up women whose men had just been deployed to fight in the First World War. No one remembered it very long except Berlin himself.

He later explained, “A song is like a marriage. It takes a perfect blending of the two mates, the music and the words, to make a perfect match. In the case of “Easter Parade,” it took a divorce and a second marriage to bring about the happiest of unions.” Continue reading →