God Bless America

This morning Gordo was asking where his glasses were. I was in a silly mood and started singing “Over there … over there … over there ”. He found them and said … “You know … Irving Berlin composed his songs on the black keys of the piano.”
“Excuse me … Dad … what? He replies … “the composer who wrote that song”. Wow! That’s interesting! And he went right into reading his newspaper.

You know I had to check it out. Turns out he was partially correct. 
Irving Berlin did compose with black keys. However he wrote “God Bless America”. George Cohan wrote “Over There”. 

I see no reason to correct him, as it makes him frustrated when he has memory loss issues ... but thought this was interesting anyway. See below …

Part of "Berlin’s" appeal as a personality was his straightforwardness. He readily admitted he was in the music business “to make money.” Although he earned a royalty on his lyrics, Berlin realized he could double the take if he also composed the music. Here he was handicapped since he could only play the black keys on his piano as they were easier to manipulate.

The song "Over There" is about the Americans going "over there" (across the Atlantic) to help fight the Germans during World War I. In 1936, "Cohan" was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for writing the song.

Now you know the rest of the story.

God Bless America and Gordo.