This lovely piece of music, a true gem that is as sweet as it is sentimental, is what in the Victorian era was called a “parlour song.” Not that it was never featured in the concert hall (no less a world-renowned Irish tenor than John McCormack made it a regular part of his repertoire, for example). Nonetheless, a parlor song was one of the sort that was not just easy listening, but easy vocalizing. After a holiday dinner or family gathering, in the days before recorded sound, let alone widescreen TV, folks would gather around the piano at home in the parlor, naturally. The latest popular tunes were sold as sheet music, with notes and lyrics. While Aunt Sue or Uncle Joe would then play a tune on the piano, everyone else would join in to sing such favorites as this one to entertain themselves and each other. Although I have endeavored throughout to confine this collection to songs that were entirely American in origin, this melody, sometimes misidentified by the first line of the chorus as “Just a Song at Twilight,” remains so much a favorite throughout the English-speaking world now as it was then that I have made an exception in its case.
THOUGHTS FOR REFLECTION, IDEAS FOR CONSIDERATION
The more things change, the more it only seems that way. When it comes to romantic music, which means music playing on the heartstrings to elicit their deepest and most enduring responses, nothing can seem to be as bittersweet as the many kinds of partings that come at the close of another day. And that is particularly true when the day that is coming to a close has been spent with family or close friends and you’ve been having the very best of times playing cards or board games and sharing stories or just getting along, all of those activities as old as human time as well. In sum, as long as there have been humans, there have been twilights announcing that another day is ending, which serves to remind us how all things pass, making “Love’s Old Sweet Song” quite accurately “Just a Song at Twilight” to commemorate that truth with precisely the right blend of regret and remembrance.
The Maori people native to New Zealand have a farewell song that has come into the English-speaking world as “Now Is the Hour.” Google that title for the lyrics, and compare the sentiments expressed in each. Or perhaps your family has a favorite song or saying that comes to mind each time there’s a family gathering and it’s coming to a close. COVID19 has to be lingering still as a reminder that even if “the heart be weary, / Sad the day and long,” somehow, somewhere, “comes love’s old sweet song.”
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