- Never hate a song that's sold a half million copies
- The song has ended, but the melody lingers on.
- The toughest thing about success is that you've got to keep on being a success.
- [to his daughter, on his wife's lavish Christmas spending] I gave up trying to get your mother to economize. It was easier just to make more money.
- [on Fred Astaire] Fred knew the value of a song and his heart was in it before his feet took over.
- [on Alice Faye] I'd rather have Alice Faye introduce my songs than anyone else.
- [on facing a hostile public's reaction to his controversial marriage] For nearly two weeks, I have had to protect my wife from insults too bitter for me to speak of. We have lived in a nightmare of lies. When we were going to board a train one reporter was so insulting that my poor wife burst out crying. Then a Chicago newspaper printed in large type 'Berlin's bride in tears regrets step'. If you see an interview printed, except this one, it will be lies.
- [on writing songs for Ethel Merman] I guess it's like a dress designer getting that extra kick when when he dreams up a gown for a beautiful woman with a perfect figure. You give her a bad song and she will make it sound good. You give her a good song and she will make it sound great. And you better write her a good lyric because, when she sings a word, the guy up in the last row of the second balcony is going to hear every syllable of it.
- Seldom does a songwriter or any other creator meet a person interested in his particular field who doesn't firmly believe that composing a song isn't a snap, something that's dashed off in a moment, or that's dreamed up during a peaceful slumber. So many people seem to think that there's a stirring melodramatic story behind each song. That's not so. I'm sorry if this spoils any illusions, but the simple truth is that most songs are composed like stories, novels, paintings, sculpture, or anything else in the field of art. Some fellow who has a burning desire to do that particular thing, coupled with sufficient patience and industry, sits down and works until an idea comes, takes shape, and is polished into a finished product. There is no set time it takes to compose a song. They come easy sometimes, but more often they are stubborn, difficult things to drag out of the mind. It's impossible to say, too, which is the most important - the words or the music. In "Alexander's Ragtime Band", for instance, the words are without meaning unless they are with the music, and the melody is equally meaningless without the lyrics. A hit song is a combination of both. A song success must have easy phrasing and it must be within the range - one octave - of the average singer's voice. A hit, too, must have one haunting, unforgettable phrase. "Come on and hear, come on and hear" made "Alexander's Ragtime Band" popular over the world. I don't think the name of a song has anything whatever to do with its ultimate success unless, of course, it's a comedy song and then the title plays a big part.
- [on his song "White Christmas] It came out at a time when we were at war, and it became a peace song in wartime - nothing I ever intended.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content