"I listened to them constantly," he told reporters. Music-specifically, coming up with the melodies to some of Tin Pan Alley's biggest hits-was his particular and peculiar genius.Ĭarmichael attributed his melodic gift to his roots in jazz and his love of jazz pianists, which he got from his mother, who loved to play ragtime. But his real interest and talent, and where he'd end up making his living, was in the world of entertainment. He graduated from Indiana University and its law school and soon began to practice law in Indianapolis. "We couldn't afford a good doctor or good attention, and that's when I vowed I would never be broke again in my lifetime," Carmichael said. ![]() Her death was something Carmichael would never forget, and it would fuel his ambition. In 1918, the Spanish flu ravaged the country, and his baby sister, Joanna, was not spared. The defining event in his early life sprang from tragedy. Throughout his youth, his family struggled to make ends meet. His father took on whatever jobs he could to help pay the bills, first as a horse-drawn taxi driver and later as an electrician. But the story of how the song came to be, and how it became a song the world would come to know and love, is a quintessentially American story.Ĭarmichael was born in Bloomington, Indiana, in 1899. The two men who wrote the music and lyrics-Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrell-can't answer that question because they died a long time ago. ![]() Others believe it's a song about a place.
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