Dennis Day's 1950 St. Patrick's Day Message and Single

In 1950, singer-comedian Dennis Day was at the peak of show business. He was famous on radio (with Jack Benny and in his own show), and his records did well. Television was to come, later in 1950 with Benny, then on his own show in 1952.

One of Day's his successes in 1949 was his single of  "Clancy Lowered the Boom." So when St. Patrick's Day 1950 drew near, he sent a recorded message to disc jockeys across the U.S. asking them to make his new Irish-themed record a success.

In this one-minute spiel, Day thanks them for plugging "Clancy," and asks that they do the same for his new record, "How Can You Buy Killarney?", which he proclaimed could be even greater than "Galway Bay." "Killarney" was included on the other side of the promo record shown above.

"Killarney" was, in truth, a nice song, although no "Galway Bay," and far different from the rollicking "Clancy Lowered the Boom," which trades on the stereotype of the fighting Irishman. "Whenever he got his Irish up, Clancy lowered the boom" went the refrain. It was a popular tune, and its publisher went so far as to push repeat sales in the 1950 season.

On the record available to the public, "How Can You Buy Killarney?" was backed with "O, Katharina!", which Day tells the disc jockeys was a popular favorite when he was young. It turns out to be a L. Wolfe Gilbert-Richard Fall song from 1924, an early example of a song making fun of an obese girlfriend. Just a few years before Day's record, Hoagy Carmichael had had a hit with the similar "Huggin' and Chalkin'" and Arthur Godfrey had made the "Too Fat Polka" a success. "O, Katharina!" also allowed Day to display his gift for dialect, in this case German. 

I've also included Day's follow-up to "Killarney"/"Katharina" - "The Horse Told Me," in which the singer becomes impressionist. He imitates (in order) Jimmy Durante, Ronald Colman, Jerry Colonna, Titus Moody of Fred Allen's radio show, and Bert Gordon ("The Mad Russian"). Most of these names are unfamiliar today, but would have been known to the 1950 American audience. "The Horse Told Me" is from the Bing Crosby horse-racing flick Riding High. (The hits from the Burke-Van Heusen score were "Sunshine Cake" and "A Sure Thing.")

In his records, Day also showed interest in Western themes - the flip side of "The Horse Told Me" is "There's an 'X' in the Middle of Texas" and the backing for "Clancy" is Cindy Walker's fine waltz, "The Romance of the Rose." 

If you want to hear more of Day, my other blog has his album of Irish songs as heard in the 1947 film, My Wild Irish Rose, newly remastered.

Thanks to my pal Ernie for alerting me to the Day promo record! Make sure to check in with Ernie at his blog - he's posting unusual Christmas material each week. Those items come from Internet Archive, as did these Dennis Day selections.

Dennis Day was popular on television in its early years