When I Lost You by Irving Berlin

Album: Great American Composers (1912)

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Songfacts®:

In 1911, Irving Berlin had a massive hit with "Alexander's Ragtime Band"; not unnaturally he thought he'd found a winning formula, although none of his follow ups came close to emulating the success of the original, but the following year he had another massive hit with a song he would rather not have written.
Berlin met his first wife, Dorothy Goetz through her brother, a collaborator of his, and after a whirlwind romance they married in February 1912. They honeymooned in Cuba where she contracted typhoid, and died the following July.
His new bride was buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery, and for the next thirteen years he placed flowers regularly on her grave until he remarried, but his immediate reaction was to freeze. "When I Lost You" was written in the wake of his grief. Published by Waterson, Berlin & Snyder of New York, this lachrymosal tribute - in waltz time - became his first hit ballad. >>
Suggestion credit:
Alexander Baron - London, England

Comments: 1

Andy M. from Saco, MaineJust heard this song for the first time while watching an old L. Welk show today (11/19/22). I lost my wife of 50 years on 4/4/22 and I would have played this song at her funeral. It expresses how I feel now!!!

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