Sonny Boy (song)
"Sonny Boy" is a song written by Ray Henderson, Bud De Sylva, and Lew Brown. The hyper-sentimental tearjerker was featured in the 1928 talkie The Singing Fool. Sung by Al Jolson, the 1928 recording was a hit and stayed at #1 for 12 weeks in the charts and was a million seller.[1]Paul Robeson also recorded this song on 78 recording
Lyrics
Climb up on my knee, Sonny Boy
Though you're only three, Sonny Boy
You've no way of knowing
There's no way of showing
What you mean to me, Sonny Boy.
When there are grey skies,
I don't mind the grey skies.
You make them blue, Sonny Boy.
Friends may forsake me.
Let them all forsake me.
I still have you, Sonny Boy.
You're sent from heaven
And I know your worth.
You made a heaven
For me here on earth.
When I'm old and grey, dear
Promise you won't stray, dear
For I love you so, Sonny Boy.
When there are grey skies,
I don't mind grey skies.
You make them blue, Sonny Boy.
Friends may forsake me.
Let them all forsake me.
I still have you, Sonny Boy.
You're sent from heaven
And I know your worth.
You've made a heaven
For me here on earth.
And the angels grew lonely
Took you because they were lonely
I'm lonely too, Sonny Boy.
Eddie Fisher
Singer Eddie Fisher was always called "Sonny Boy" by his family because of the popularity of this song, which was recorded the same year as Fisher's birth. In his autobiography, Fisher wrote that even after he was married to Elizabeth Taylor in 1959, earning $40,000 a week performing in Las Vegas, spending time with Frank Sinatra and Rocky Marciano, and had songs at the top of the charts, his family still called him "Sonny Boy".[2]
Notable recordings and performances
Arild Andresen, piano with guitar and bass recorded it in Oslo on March 11, 1955 as the first melody of the medley "Klaver-Cocktail Nr. 4" along with "Top Hat, White Tie and Tails" and "Ain't Misbehavin'. The medley was released on the 78 rpm record His Master's Voice A.L. 3514.
The song has also been recorded by the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra with vocalist Ruth Brown, Ruth Etting, The Andrews Sisters, Petula Clark, Mandy Patinkin, John MacCormack, Richard Tauber, Franz Völker and Rudolf Schock.
The song is used repeatedly in the film Jacob's Ladder where it is used to convey a link between Jacob and his dead son Gabe.
Pesach Burstein recorded a Yiddish version (translation by L. Wolfe Gilbert).
The song is used as a major plot point in the short story Jeeves and the Song of Songs by P. G. Wodehouse (originally published 1929), included in the collection Very Good, Jeeves (1930). The story was dramatised as the second episode of season 1 of the British TV series Jeeves and Wooster, "Tuppy and the Terrier", where is it performed by Hugh Laurie as the character Bertie Wooster and then by Constance Novis as the character Cora Bellinger.
Ken Dodd performed the song as part of his ventriloquist's act with his puppet Dicky Mint during his performance on the LWT series An Audience With...
The song was performed by one of the entrants at Talent Trek on Phoenix Nights
References
According to the British TV documentary, "The Real Jolson Story," "Sonny Boy" was written in a single sitting in a hotel room in Atlantic City as a joke.