The Songwriter
Judah Sudley's earliest memories were of his mother's illness and death when he just five years old. All that remained in his recollections of the days prior to that heartbreaking event were scattered images, snapshots in his mind of a pretty young woman who would wipe his tears away when he cried, read to him before he went to sleep at night, care for him when he was sick and love him when he was lonely.
No sooner had his mother passed away than little Judah was sent to live with his maternal grandmother, a former schoolteacher. It was not a case of his surviving parent not loving or wanting him, but his father could not work and be at home to raise a small child. Glynnis Baird, the boy's fifty-two-year-old grandmother, was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1860 and immigrated to the United States in 1884. Although the boy loved his grandparent and still saw his father on a regular basis, he was desolate at losing his mother.
"You mustn't cry, little lad," Glynnis said consolingly. "It won't do you any good. It won't bring her back."
"But I miss her so much," the boy sobbed.
"We all do. You know what you need? Something to take your mind off your sorrow."
"Like what?"
"Why don't you draw a nice picture?"
"I can't draw."
"All right, then. Why not play with your toy soldiers?"
"I don't feel like it."
After several more ideas, all of which her grandson vetoed, Glynnis suggested he make up a song about his mother. There was an immediate spark of interest in Judah's eyes.
"If I come up with the words, will you write them down for me?"
"Of course. And if you want to ever become a real songwriter, you'll need to call them by their proper name: lyrics."
"What about the music?"
"You could write lyrics and use an existing melody. For instance, when he wrote the song 'My Country, 'Tis of Thee,' Samuel Francis Smith used the melody from the United Kingdom's national anthem, 'God Save the Queen.'"
"I'd rather write my own music."
"In that case, you'll need to learn how."
Hoping not only to take her grandson's mind off his mother's passing but also to encourage him to find a satisfying pastime, Glynnis purchased a used piano, and his father paid for him to have lessons.
"Your grandson shows great promise," Winnie Theunis, the piano teacher, said after she had taught Judah for six months. "Not only has he quickly learned to read music, but he has a gift for writing his own melodies."
"I'm delighted to hear that!" Glynnis exclaimed. "His father will be, too. The poor boy was devastated when my daughter died, which was why I encouraged him to write a song for her in the first place."
"You did a wise thing," the teacher concurred. "Music often serves as a catharsis. It's a positive way in which one can find relief from strong, unpleasant emotions."
"Good. Then please continue to give Judah piano lessons. Who knows? Maybe someday he'll play in an orchestra."
* * *
When nine-year-old Judah learned one day in May of 1915 that a ship called the Lusitania had been torpedoed and sunk off the coast of Ireland, the news saddened the child. It was not only the tragic loss of life that troubled him; it also reminded him of another sinking that, in turn, rekindled memories of his mother's death.
"My mother died in April 1912," he explained to his piano teacher. "I remember people at her funeral talking about a ship called the Titanic that struck an iceberg. They said more than a thousand people died when it went down."
"More than fifteen hundred, actually."
"Why do people have to die?" Judah asked, breaking down in uncontrollable tears. "Why does God allow it?"
"Perhaps you should ask your grandmother or your father those questions," Winnie replied, believing that she was not the one to instruct him on such matters.
"I don't like to talk about serious things with them. My father would get sad because he misses my mother as much as I do, and my grandmother will tell me I should concentrate on my music and not worry about things I'm too young to understand."
"Maybe she's right. You're good at writing songs. Why not write one about the poor people who died on the Lusitania?"
"What about those who went down with the Titanic?"
"You can write about them, too."
"Will I feel better if I do?"
"If you put your heart and feelings into your song, you will."
It took Judah more than a week to write a song about the many people who were consigned to watery graves, on both the Titanic and the Lusitania. It proved to be an exhausting task that left him emotionally drained.
"Miss Theunis was right," he later told his grandmother. "I don't feel sad anymore."
He neglected to mention, however, that he literally felt nothing. It was as though the pen that Judah used to write his sheet of music also served as an eraser to eradicate all emotion within him.
* * *
Two years after the Lusitania had been attacked by a German U-boat, the United States declared war on Germany. Whether spurred by patriotism or the belief that his life was not worth living, Judah's father enlisted in the army. He did not serve long. John Sudley was killed during the Battle of Cambrai on November 30, 1917.
When Judah heard the tragic news, the orphan immediately sought solace in writing several songs about the war and the death of his father.
"Poor little lad!" his grandmother said to the boy's music teacher. "Losing both his parents at so young an age."
"How is he handling it?" Winnie inquired.
"Much better than I had expected. When his mother died, he was bereft. I didn't see him shed a tear when he heard about his father. Of course, young children are normally closer to their mothers."
"Have you noticed him writing any new songs?"
"Yes, I have. I've no doubt that's how he's managing to hold himself together now. He's found his strength in his music."
Just one year later, Judah would need to dip into that well of strength again. Fast on the heels of World War I came an enemy that was even more deadly than the dreaded Hun. An influenza epidemic claimed an estimated fifty million casualties. One fifth of the world's population fell victim to this deadly foe that killed more people than any other disease in history.
Although both Judah and his grandmother avoided contracting the deadly illness, Winnie Theunis had not been so lucky. She came down with the flu in the fall of 1918 and was laid in her grave at the end of December.
Her sensitive, impressionable student, just twelve years of age, was overwhelmed by the number of deaths not only in his own life but around the world as well. Both his parents and his piano teacher had died, as had the crew and passengers of the Titanic and the Lusitania, the soldiers and civilians who fell during the Great War and those who had succumbed to influenza.
It seems as though my entire life, all I've known was death, the boy thought.
There was no emotion behind those words. Death was a given fact, one that no longer caused sadness. Rather, the pandemic inspired him to write more songs, some with lyrics while others were melodies with no words. All of them salved his wounds and provided him a much-needed lifeline in a sea of sorrow.
* * *
The Roaring Twenties. The Jazz Age. In France, the 1920s are referred to as années folles, the Crazy Years. No matter what you call it, it was a decade of economic prosperity and sweeping social and cultural changes. To Judah Sudley, it was the best time of his life.
After graduating high school in 1922, Judah headed to New York City to pursue a career in music. His talent at the piano got him a job at a swanky speakeasy that catered to the Broadway theater crowd. It was while he was playing there that he met Sybil Arden, a beautiful chorus girl with black hair cut in a fashionably short bob and large, doe-like brown eyes.
"So, why do you want to become an actress?" he asked as he walked her home after their first date.
"What makes you think I want to be one?"
"You're on Broadway, aren't you?"
"I want to be a singer, not an actress. All my life I've loved music!" she exclaimed, doing a drunken pirouette.
"You must be my soul mate then," Judah teased. "Music is the very blood in my veins."
"A singer and a piano player. We'd make a great team."
"A singer and a songwriter."
"You write songs? Really? Anything I might have heard?"
"No, I've never sent any of my songs to a publisher."
"Why the hell not?"
Having grown up in his grandmother's house where proper manners were practiced, Judah was surprised to hear a young lady swear. He should not be, he realized, since he had already come to terms with women drinking and smoking.
"My music has always been very personal to me. I never wanted to share it with anyone."
"Not even me?" Sybil asked seductively.
"Well, maybe I can make an exception in your case."
The two of them went back to Judah's room above the speakeasy where he took out the box of sheet music he had written over the years. Sybil looked at over a dozen songs before commenting.
"If all your songs are like these, no wonder you never sent them to a publisher."
Judah felt his heart sink. She did not like his music. It was a far worse insult than if she had thought him ugly, stupid or boring. He could take personal rejection far better than a casual dismissal of his talent.
"It's good, really good," she clarified, "but it's depressing! Nobody's gonna wanna dance to this or sing along with it."
Relief flooded through him. She liked his music, after all.
"I didn't write it for a Broadway musical," he explained. "It was written to express what I was feeling at the most trying times during my life."
"You mean you've never written more upbeat tunes?"
"I never had anything in my life to inspire me," Judah confessed.
Sybil's carmine-colored lips parted in a captivating smile, and her heavily made-up eyes twinkled mischievously.
"Then let me be your muse. You will write wonderful songs, and I will sing them. The two of us will become world famous and filthy rich."
Less than a year after the two met, Judah proposed to Sybil and she accepted.
"Why don't we get married right away?" he suggested.
"Now? But you still haven't sold any of your songs, and I'm still wasting away in the chorus line."
"So?"
"I want a big wedding followed by a European honeymoon."
"I don't see why we need all the fuss and expense. It's only preventing us from being man and wife."
"Don't think of it that way," she teased coquettishly. "Think of our marriage as the well-deserved reward we'll receive when we finally become successful."
Three years went by. Although Judah wrote dozens of light, catchy tunes accompanied by cheerful lyrics, he could not sell a single song. He continued to earn his living by playing piano at the speakeasy.
Meanwhile, Sybil was becoming impatient. She was tired of singing in the chorus and longed to become a headliner. More than fame, she wanted money, and she wanted to obtain it while she was still young enough to enjoy it.
"I hate this tiny, dingy apartment," she complained one evening. "And I'm beginning to hate New York, too."
"It's better than Henryville, Pennsylvania," Judah teased, reminding her of the small town where she grew up.
"But it's not Paris. Once you finally begin selling your songs that's where I want to move. Maybe I can be like Josephine Baker and perform at the Folies Bergère."
Judah noticed that as time went by, his fiancée's dreams kept getting bigger and bigger. He hoped she would not be too disappointed if they did not all come true.
Although the owners of the speakeasy paid him a decent wage, most of what he earned went toward paying rent and various living expenses. Any money that was left over was usually spent on Sybil, either on gifts or entertainment. Thus, the couple lived from paycheck to paycheck, and nothing was put aside for a rainy day.
For the next several years Judah continued writing his light-hearted songs despite the apparent lack of interest he had gotten from music publishers. During that time, Sybil grew more exasperated with his lack of success. Perhaps he was not the man who would rescue her from the chorus line. Maybe she should look elsewhere for Mr. Right. However, time, excessive drinking and too little sleep were beginning to take their toll on her looks. If she wanted to find another potential husband, she would have to do so soon.
* * *
Technically, the Twenties ended on January 1, 1930. However, they ceased to roar in October of '29 when the stock market crashed. That was when the economic bubble burst, and millions of people lost their life's savings, their jobs and their homes.
Although Sybil Arden had already made up her mind to leave Judah Sudley, she was now faced with a dwindling number of likely prospects to take his place. She certainly did not want to leave a man with a steady income and the possibility of a successful career as a songwriter—no matter how improbable it was—for one who was unemployed and had no prospects at all.
Judah's misfortunes, however, were not only financial in nature. Shortly after the curtain came down on the Twenties and one was raised on the Thirties, his beloved Scottish grandmother passed away. At least he now knew how to deal with death. It was something he had a great deal of experience with. After Glynnis Baird was placed in her grave, her grandson shut himself away in his apartment above the speakeasy for three days and composed a series of songs inspired by the woman who had helped him get through the most difficult times of his life.
"Where have you been?" Sybil asked a week after the funeral. "I haven't seen you since your grandmother died."
"I've been writing."
"Really? Anything good?"
"It depends on what you mean by good."
"Something the publishers will want to buy. Honestly, sometimes you can be so dense!"
"Then, no. The songs aren't any good."
"Don't tell me you've gone back to writing those depressing dirges of yours."
"My music helps me survive in this world, in much the same was as drinking helps you."
Surviving was not Sybil's concern. She had no desire to simply exist; she wanted to live life to its fullest. When she met Alfonso Addonizio, a former bootlegger turned mobster, Sybil saw her ticket out of the chorus line.
"What are you doing?" Judah asked when he saw his fiancée packing her clothes into a well-worn portmanteau.
"What does it look like I'm doing?" she replied sarcastically. "I'm leaving."
"But we love each. We're going to get married someday."
"I've changed my mind. I don't want to marry you. I'm tired of waiting for you to make something of yourself."
Sybil turned to Judah and looked into his face, seeing neither anger nor sadness in his expressionless features.
"Our breakup doesn't bother you at all, does it?"
"Don't be ridiculous! You know it does."
"No, it doesn't!" she cried. "Nothing ever bothers you. When something bad or tragic happens in your life, you just go and write a song about it. You pour all your emotions into your music rather than actually feel them in your heart."
"What would you have me do? Sit down and cry like a baby?"
"You know what? I just realized why you never sold any of your songs. You don't really want to sell them. You want them all to yourself and not have to share them with the world because without your music, you wouldn't exist."
As Sybil walked out of his life, slamming the door behind her, Judah suspected she had spoken the truth. He no longer felt anything and had not for some time. As she had predicted, he wasted no time regretting the failure of the relationship. His former fiancée had not even made it to the waiting taxi when Judah reached for a pencil and sheet of blank staff paper and began to compose.
* * *
Horace Wilton, a gruff record producer who had, over the course of his career, signed a number of moderately successful recording artists, frowned at Judah Sudley and handed him back his sheet music.
"I can't read that," the producer said. "I'm a businessman, not a musician. Go over to the piano and play it for me. That is, if you know how to play."
Judah took a seat at the upright piano—one that had obviously seen better days—and began to play. Although he did not have a strong voice, he sang the lyrics to the ballad, as well. When he was done, he turned to Horace expectantly.
"Hmmm," the producer said hesitantly, "the melody is ... uh ...."
"You don't like it," Judah declared pessimistically.
"Don't go putting words into my mouth. That's not what I was going to say. The melody is ... somber and in some places in the song downright eerie. As for the lyrics ... I don't believe I've ever heard a song about suicide before."
"It's a love song."
"No, Irving Berlin's 'Always' is a love song; yours is an elegy set to the tune of a funeral march."
"It's about a man who can't bear losing the woman he loves. When faced with her death, his first instinct is to want to join her. I'll bet millions of people have felt that way over the centuries."
"I'm sure they have," Horace agreed. "But I'm not in business to contemplate life and death. I'm faced with my own dilemma here. If I agree to record this song, will anyone want to buy it?"
It was a good question. Most people wanted music to enrich their lives or lift their spirits. Some only wanted a toe-tapping tune to dance to or a relaxing melody that would help them unwind at the end of the day. Would people want to buy a record that was sure to dampen their mood?
"I'll tell you what, kid. Let me sleep on it, and I'll call you tomorrow with my answer."
It was only after reading his horoscope the next morning that Horace decided to produce "Dark Day."
By the middle of the 1930s, not only did more than twenty million American homes have a radio, but also many cars were coming equipped with them. Although "Dark Day" did not receive nearly as much airtime as "Stormy Weather" or "Minnie the Moocher," it was played throughout the United States and the United Kingdom.
At first, record and sheet music sales were disappointing, and Wilton feared the song would not sell enough to recoup its production costs. Then, on June 18, 1936, a bus driver from Alexandria, Virginia, was found hanging from a beam in his attic. Before killing himself, he left a note in which he quoted several of Judah's lyrics. A week later, a body of a young woman was pulled out of the Mississippi River. Clutched tightly in her hand was the sheet music to "Dark Day." Initially, there was no undue interest in either of these two deaths. It was not until the end of November, in fact, when his own sister killed herself while "Dark Day" played on her phonograph that a freelance reporter connected at least eighteen suicides to Sudley's song.
Oddly enough, the notoriety caused by these deaths resulted in the public's growing curiosity and increased sales. Sensible people saw no danger in listening to the record being played over the radio. Others foolishly feared the morbid melody and suggestive lyrics would cause happy, well-adjusted individuals to end their lives. Listeners wrote in to radio stations demanding that deejays stop playing the "suicide song." When sponsors learned about the public's unfavorable reaction, they threatened to withdraw their advertising dollars. One radio station after another banned the song.
"That's what's wrong with this world," Horace Wilton declared when he met with Judah for lunch one day. "Too many people have small minds. Imagine thinking a piece of music could make you kill yourself!"
"Music has always had just the opposite effect on me. There were times in my life when part of me didn't want to live, but then I would lose myself in my music."
"You've obviously got a good head on your shoulders. Too bad the same can't be said of the dimwits in the radio audience."
Judah did not really care about the record-buying public, at least not about the vast majority of them. His decision to have his song recorded was not motivated by money but rather to prove to Sybil Arden that his music was good and that she had been foolish to leave him.
"I'm the fool, not her," he said under his breath.
"What's that?" the producer asked.
"Nothing. I'm just talking to myself."
The topic of conversation switched from music to the growing Nazi threat in Europe.
"Now that's something people should be afraid of!" Horace exclaimed after the waiter brought him the check. "Reading the world news ought to make them want to kill themselves, not listening to a song."
Judah chuckled even though the producer's comments were only half in jest.
Horace paid the bill, and the two men left the restaurant. As he was getting into his car, the record producer called to Judah.
"Despite all the bad publicity your song has received, there are a number of music critics that have found some promise in your work. I'd be interested in seeing anything else you may have written."
"I have a box of songs I've composed over the years. I'll be sure to leave them to you in my will!"
Thus, the two men parted in laughter. Neither of them realized it was to be the last time they would ever see each other.
* * *
Just as the sinking of the Titanic and the Lusitania had a profound effect on Judah when he was a child, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had a similar impact on him as an adult. He read through the list of the ships that were sunk and felt that familiar awe of death: the Utah, the Oglala, the West Virginia, the California, the Oklahoma and the Arizona. Over two thousand four hundred Americans lost their lives on Sunday, December 7, 1941.
This time Judah did not drown his sorrow in his music. Like his father before him, he enlisted in the army. Unlike his father, he survived four years of hell and eventually returned home.
As he walked through the throng of victory celebrants in New York's Times Square, he never felt more alone. Everywhere around him people were cheering, laughing, singing patriotic anthems and waving American flags.
Why don't I feel any joy? he wondered.
He reflected on all the horrors he had seen during the previous four years, from fellow soldiers being blown up in battle to innocent civilians starving in concentration camps, and realized he had felt nothing but numbness at the death and suffering he had witnessed.
Suddenly a pretty young girl threw her arms around him and kissed him on the cheek. Again, there was no stirring of emotion. The emptiness inside him was all-encompassing like a hunger that could not be sated or a thirst that could not be quenched. He turned from the girl and headed toward his hotel room.
Judah opened the drawer where next to the Bible, he found a few sheets of stationery. He took a pen from his pocket and was poised to write, but nothing came to him. No notes. No words. For more than thirty years, sorrow had been his muse, and now it deserted him, leaving behind an empty shell of a man.
My entire life I've been pouring my emotions into my music and now I have nothing left inside.
Realizing he would never be able to write another song, he walked out of his hotel and headed in a southwesterly direction. When he reached the Battery, he stared at the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. There was something about her profile that reminded him of his Scottish grandmother.
Judah closed his eyes and tried to remember Glynnis Baird's features. He held on to an image of her soft gray eyes as he dove off the pier and plunged headfirst into the Hudson River.
* * *
Horace Wilton was listening to Mel Allen's play-by-play broadcast of the New York Yankees-Philadelphia Athletics game when he was interrupted by a knock on his door.
"Whaddya want?" he grumpily snapped when he answered, annoyed at the disturbance.
"Are you Mr. Horace Wilton?" a middle-aged man in a freshly pressed, clean suit asked.
"Yeah, that's me. What of it? Make it quick. It's the bottom of the eighth, and the score is tied two-two."
"Are you familiar with a man by the name of Judah Sudley?"
The record producer's attitude abruptly changed.
"Yes, I am."
"I regret to be the bearer of bad news, but I'm here to inform you that Mr. Sudley is deceased."
"How did he die?"
"I'm afraid he drowned."
"By accident?"
The stranger paled but replied truthfully, "His death has been ruled a suicide. Witnesses say he deliberately jumped into the river."
"I'm not surprised, but why have you brought me this news?"
"Mr. Sudley left a letter in his hotel room, with instructions that he wanted you to have his belongings, in particular, a collection of songs he had written."
Horace forgot all about the Yankee game when he opened the box and saw Judah's lifetime of work. Without bothering to turn off his radio, he got his wallet and car keys and drove to the house of a friend named Cleavon Mathers, a studio musician, with a large handful of Judah's sheet music.
"Horace? What are you doing here? Why aren't you home listening to the Yankees?"
"Never mind about a baseball game. Where's your piano?"
"In the music room, where it's always been. Why?"
"I want you to play a few songs for me."
Cleavon took one look at the stack of pages in the producer' hands and exclaimed, "All those? It'll take me awhile."
"Well, then, just play a few of them."
Horace followed the piano player down the stairs to the music room. For the next few hours, he listened as Cleavon played one song after another. Both men were speechless by the beautiful and sometimes haunting melodies of Judah Sudley. Neither of them bothered to look at the lyrics. Words were not necessary. The music spoke for itself.
Only when Mathers came to the final note of the last page of sheet music did he stop playing the piano.
"One man wrote all these songs?" he asked in disbelief.
"This is only a portion of it. I've got an entire box of his work at home."
"I'm not a critic, but I know music. This guy is some kind of a genius."
"Genius, hell! He was a goddamned prodigy. He wrote some of those compositions when he was just five years old."
"How old is he now?"
A look of sadness clouded Horace's face.
"I'm afraid he's dead. Just thirty-eight years old, and he threw himself into the Hudson. Before he took that plunge, he gave me all his music."
"Why'd he do that?"
"Because I produced a recording of one of his songs a few years before the war. You ever hear of Judah Sudley?"
"Yeah. Didn't he write the suicide song?"
"That's the one."
"It's kind of ironic that he killed himself, given the stories that circulated about his song," Cleavon observed.
"Yeah, but I think once the music world has the chance to hear these other compositions, they'll forget all that nonsense and reassess the song."
* * *
Horace Wilton's predictions proved to be true. It took more than ten years for the producer to release all of Judah's works. Every one of them, including the previously rejected tunes he wrote while engaged to Sybil Arden, received critical acclaim and widespread public approval. Eventually, "Dark Day" became a modern classic, being recorded by some of the world's most popular singers.
Judah Sudley, the songwriter, may have died young, but his music will no doubt live forever. For when he dove into the murky waters of the Hudson River, all the grief, fear and despair he had kept buried deep inside died along with him, leaving only the genius of the music behind.
This story was inspired by the song "Gloomy Sunday" written by Rezso Seress (music) and Laszlo Javor (lyrics). In the song, as a grieving man is contemplating suicide, he asks his dead lover to join him at his funeral. According to urban legend, the song caused approximately 18 people to take their own lives. It is often referred to as the Hungarian Suicide Song. Note: The composer of the song (Seress) later killed himself.
No doubt hearing Salem sing and play piano has caused more than one person to contemplate suicide!
