Your Non-Dardanella of the Month

My obsession with “Dardanella” continues, but today, in a local thrift store, my attention was momentarily arrested by a pristine 78-RPM disc of the Mills Brothers’ singing, “Paper Moon.” In retrospect, I suppose it was not all that big a deal — given that “Paper Moon” was the biggest hit the Mills Brothers had in their sixty-year career, there’s gotta be a lot of these discs floating around. But I did find myself enjoying a fleeting rush of serendipity. I’ll explain the connection to “Dardanella” in a moment, but first, hark! Let’s listen to the song…

Yes, that was an odd clip, one more to add to the endless collection of oddities you’ll find on YouTube. But it fits, because “Paper Doll” is an odd song - one of those tunes that sound nice enough when you listen to it casually, but then when you really listen to it, all kinds of oogie implications creep into your head. Think about it: “I’d rather have a paper doll to call my own,” sings the crooner, “than have a fickle-minded real live girl.”

Really?

Back to “Dardanella.” The authorship of “Dardanella” was attributed, after some dispute and at least one lawsuit, to three writers. One of them, Johnny S. Black, died in 1936 after getting knocked in the head, or so the story goes, in a night club altercation over a matter of twenty-five cents. And so it was that one of the authors of the biggest hit of 1920 never lived to see the success of his other greatest song, “Paper Doll” — the biggest hit of 1943.

“Dardanella” leads everywhere, to all things. Trust me on this, the more you look, the more you find in it.

As for the disc in the thrift store, it’s still there. I don’t own a turntable, so I didn’t buy it. Alas.

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