Red Wing, Wizard of Oz, An American in Paris


Sweet serendipity. What do all these things have in common? Yeah, I guess you could probably find a lot of things they have in common, so I'll cut to the chase: both The Wizard of Oz and An American in Paris have bits of the song "Red Wing" within them. At least, I thought they did...

I was up at an old-time music jam, and an older fellow was playing "Red Wing" on the fiddle. I recognized that melody from The Wizard of Oz. The other musicians looked at me like, "of course." I still was intrigued, because I always thought that the melody I recognized in the Wizard was just incidental music written specifically for the movie.

So, I went out to the Great and Powerful Interweb to find out more. Maybe it's just my poor searching skills, but I have yet to find any mention of the Red Wing - Wizard of Oz connection. But in my search, I came across this website full of information about songs of yesteryear, including "Red Wing" (check out this great cover art!) :




http://www.perfessorbill.com/index2.htm

Red Wing is about three-fourths of the way down the page. After you read it, click on the topmost Red Wing sheet music cover, and a javascript will run playing the Red Wing Intermezzo. What does that intro make you think of? If you're like me, it made me think of George Gershwin. I wrote to the Perfessor, and he replied that the intro was his doing. Aw, man. I thought I was onto something. Still, his website is worth exploring.

Posted: Mon - May 29, 2006 at 12:07 PM      

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