Search Tips: 1) Click "Find on This Page" button to activate page search box. 2) When searching for a name (e.g. a songwriter), enter last name only. 3) When searching for a song title on the catalog page, omit an initial "The" or "A". 4) more search tips.
Clifford Grey
c. 1921
Basic Information
Born: January 5, 1887, Birmingham, UK
Died: September 25, 1941 (age 54), Ipswich, Suffolk, UK
Clifford Grey was a prolific English songwriter who wrote lyrics for such musicals as Hit the Deck and The Three Musketeers after getting his start as an actor in 1907. Perhaps most famously he wrote the words for the 1916 song "If You Were the Only Girl in the World (and I were the only boy").
Grey began his career as a lyricist for musical comedies and revues in 1913 in England where his credits became ubiquitous. This early success as a songwriter led to him giving up acting altogether. His first try at writing a musical revue was titled "The Bing Boys Are Here" in 1916, which included the song "If You Were the Only Girl in the World" and was well enough received in London to get him to try an American version, "The Bing Boys on Broadway," which itself moved from New York back to London making him an important contributor to musical theater on both sides of the Atlantic. (Source: The New York Timesobituary, September 27, 1941.)
Between 1917 and 1933 he contributed to no less than thirty-three Broadway productions in which his collaborators included George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Vincent Youmans, J. Fred Coots, Jay Gorney, Johnny Green, Oscar Levant, Sigmund Romberg, and Rudolph Friml (See IBDB.) During the late Twenties and Thirties he wrote for the movies both in Hollywood and in England. In Hollywood he worked on films, among others, by Ernst Lubitsch including Love Parade, the first Maurice Chevalier / Jeanette McDonald film. Gary Marmorstein writes of the movie that "though its staging may appear creaky now, its spirit is young and its music sublime" (p. 43). The songwriters for the movie were Victor Schertzinger (music) and Grey (lyrics) and the songs they wrote included "Dream Lover" as well as several others.
During World War II, Grey did volunteer work for the war effort. He died from a German bomb blast in his home town of Ipswich, Suffolk, UK, September 21, 1941.
It's likely that Clifford Grey wouldn't have had a chance to write (really co-write with Leo Robin) one of his most well know lyrics if it hadn't been for John Philip Sousa, America's march king. Vincent Youmans wrote the music for what eventually would become the song "Hallelujah!" some ten years before it hit the boards in the Broadway show Hit the Deck. As William Zinsser tells it, Youman's talents were recoginized by Sousa who was bandmaster at a naval base just north of Chicago where Youmans was stationed during WWI. Youmans gave a melody to Sousa who liked it so much that soon it was being played at bases around the country.
Ten years later, remembering its success with America's sailors, Youmans resurrected [the melody] on Broadway for Hit the Deck." Titled Hallelujah!" and given a suitably exhultant lyric by [its lyricists] Leo Robin and Clifford Grey, it turned out to be no less popular with civilians and has been around ever since, its call to meeting hard to resist.
Sing Hal-le-lu-jah! Hal-le-lu-jah!"
And you'll shoo the
Blues away . . .
Cafe Songbook
Music-Video Cabinet:
Clifford Grey (This section is currently in preparation)
"If You Were the Only Girl in the World"
(words by Clifford Grey, music by Nat D. Ayer)
in a clip from the 1944 British film The Way Ahead
(U.S. title: The Immortal Batallion)
"Hallelujah!" (words by Clifford Grey and Leo Robin, muic by Vincent Youmans) performed by Phil Ohman and Victor Arden with Their Orchestra and vocal chorus, 1927.
Jeanette McDonald sings "Dream Lover"
(words by Clifford Grey, Music by Victor Schertzinger)
from the soundtrack of the Ernst Lubitsch musical Love Parade (1929).
Clifford Greyresearch resources in print (listed chronologically):
ASCAP Biographical Dictionary, New York: American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, Cattell/Bowker, Fourth edition, 1980 (dates, collaborators, shows/movies, songs, etc., entry p. 201)
Submit comments on songs, songwriters, performers, etc.
Feel free to suggest an addition or correction.
Please read our Comments Guidelines before making a submission. (Posting of comments is subject to the guidelines.
Not all comments will be posted.)
Borrowed material (text): The sources of all quoted and paraphrased text are cited. Such content is used under the rules of fair use to further the educational objectives of CafeSongbook.com. CafeSongbook.com makes no claims to rights of any kind in this content or the sources from which it comes.
Borrowed material (images): Images of CD, DVD, book and similar product covers are used courtesy of either Amazon.com or iTunes/LinkShare with which CafeSongbook.com maintains an affiliate status. All such images are linked to the source from which they came (i.e. either iTunes/LinkShare or Amazon.com).
Any other images that appear on CafeSongbook.com pages are either in the public domain or appear through the specific permission of their owners. Such permission will be acknowledged in this space on the page where the image is used.
For further information on Cafe Songbook policies with regard to the above matters, see our "About Cafe Songbook" page (link at top and bottom of every page).
Cafe Songbook
Master List of Great American Songbook Songwriters
Names of songwriters who have written at least one song included in the Cafe Songbook Catalog of The Great American Songbook are listed below.
Names of songwriters with two or more song credits in the catalog (with rare exceptions) are linked to their own Cafe Songbook pages, e.g. Fields, Dorothy.
Names of songwriters with only one song credit in the catalog are linked to the Cafe Songbook page for that song, on which may be found information about the songwriter or a link to an information source for him or her.
Please note: Cafe Songbook pages for songwriters are currently in various stages of development.