East of the sun and west of the moon
We'll build a dream house of love dear
Close to the sun in the day
Near to the moon at night
We'll live in a lovely way dear
Sharing our love in the pale moonlight
Just you and I, forever and a day
Love will not die; we'll keep it that way
Up among the stars we'll find a harmony of life to a lovely tune
East of the sun and west of the moon dear
East of the sun and west of the moon
In the 1930s, the Ivy League was not only
a major force in U.S. college football, but it also occasionally cracked
the Top Ten with songs – tunes that were written for the Pennsylvania University
Masque and Wig Club and the Princeton Triangle Club shows. (After all, the
Ivy League / Tin Pan Alley connection goes back to Cole Porter’s writing
the “Yale Bulldog Song” in the early part of the century). The Princeton
Triangle show of 1935, Stags at Bay, contained the longest-lasting and loveliest
of these collegiate tunes, East of the Sun (and West of the Moon), written
by a very talented young man named Brooks Bowman. It was a great misfortune
of the music world that Bowman was killed in a car crash in 1937 at the age
of 24. “East of the Sun” enjoyed its greatest success in 1940, when
Tommy Dorsey recorded it with Frank Sinatra, using the band as choir, as
he had done so successfully a few years earlier with “Marie” and “Who?”
