On Moonlight Bay (song)

"Moonlight Bay"
Cover, sheet music, 1912
Music by	Percy Wenrich
Lyrics by	Edward Madden
Published	1912
Language	English

"On Moonlight Bay" is a popular song.

The music was written by Percy Wenrich, the lyrics by Edward Madden. The song was published in 1912. It was often sung in a Barbershop Quartet style, such as by Billy Murray and the American Quartet:

The song was one of a number of early-20th-century songs which were used as titles of musical films made by Doris Day in the late 1940s and early 1950s. See On Moonlight Bay.

Verses

Voices hum, crooning over Moonlight Bay

Banjos strum, tuning while the moonbeams play

All alone, unknown they find me

Memories like these remind me

Of the girl I left behind me

Down on Moonlight Bay

Candle lights gleaming on the silent shore

Lonely nights, dreaming till we meet once more

Far apart, her heart, is yearning

With a sigh for my returning

With the light of love still burning

As in of days of yore

Chorus

We were sailing along

On Moonlight Bay

We could hear the voices ringing

They seemed to say:

"You have stolen her heart"

"Now don't go 'way!"

As we sang love's old sweet song

On Moonlight Bay

Pop culture

• It has appeared in many Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies shorts, often as a drinking song. Examples:
  • It is sung by a quintet of drunk fish in Porky's Duck Hunt in a rowboat, after they swim through a sunken whiskey barrel shot by Porky Pig (1937). It is again sung by Porky himself in the ironically titled 1942 cartoon, My Favorite Duck, in which Porky is tormented by Daffy Duck while on a camping trip. It well fits Porky's speech impediment — which is especially noticeable with M's and B's. Daffy, meanwhile, keeps singing "Blues in the Night (My Mama Done Tol' Me)". At one point, Porky unconsciously starts to sing Daffy's number, then stops, looks into the camera with a "Harumph!" and returns to his stuttering version of "Moonlight Bay.". The song was also used in another Porky cartoon, entitled "Trap Happy Porky" (1945), and it was sung by a quintet of drunk cats (one of them was playing the piano).
  • It is also sung by Sylvester the Cat in the 1948 cartoon Back Alley Oproar.
  • Michigan J. Frog sings the chorus in Another Froggy Evening.
• The song was featured in the films On Moonlight Bay (1951) and By the Light of the Silvery Moon (1953), performed by Leon Ames, Gordon MacRae, Doris Day.
• The tune prominently featured in Louis Malle's Pretty Baby (1978), which won an Academy Award for Original Music Score in the "Adaptation Score"
• On Season 2, Episode 3 of Taxi, Louie DePalma (Danny DeVito) sings Moonlight Bay while under the influence of whatever "Reverend" Jim Ignatowski (Christopher Lloyd) has slipped into his coffee. It is part of an effort by the cabbies to get Louie to hire Jim at the cab company, something he has refused to do. Louie's final words, just before drifting off, are, "Everyone works on Moonlight Bay".
• It is revealed in episode 107 of Family Guy that Brian Griffin can simultaneously sing all four parts of four-part harmony. In a flashback scene, Brian sings “On Moonlight Bay.”
• It is sung several times in Nickelodeon's Hey Arnold.
• A spoof of this song was made by The Beatles with Morecambe and Wise. It is found on Anthology 1.

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External links

• Recording by Billy Murray and the American Quartet