Stories of Standards: “On a Clear Day”

Tune in to Jazz with Victor Cooper – weekdays from 6-9 a.m. MT – for Stories of Standards to hear our favorite versions of this song all week long, November 19 through 23, presented by Rodney Franks!

Stories of Standards is sponsored by ListenUp - If you love music, you’ll love ListenUp.

Once it was set to music, the seemingly obvious sentiment “on a clear day you can see forever” took on a poetic magnitude. You can’t even say the phrase without thinking of the melody. That’s the power of Broadway, at least in the hands of Burton Lane and Alan Jay Lerner.

Lane and Lerner worked together on the 1951 “Royal Wedding,” but the dutiful Lane was hesitant to work again with the erratic Lerner. Their collaboration opened in October 1965 and ran for 280 performances.  Reviews of the production were mixed, but the score won raves, earning a Tony nomination. In 1970 Vincente Minelli cast Barbra Streisand as Daisy Gamble in the Hollywood version.

Lane, who dropped out of high school to be a song plugger on Tin Pan Alley, ended up collaborating with Yip Harburg, Ira Gershwin, Frank Loesser, and others. And Lane discovered an 11-year old singer named Frances Gumm. He played on her MGM audition, and the girl later named Judy Garland” was signed to a contract.

Lerner earned three Oscars and three Tony awards. His greatest successes were with Frederick Loewe including “My Fair Lady,” “Gigi” and “Camelot.”

Both men were advocates for songwriters’ creative property rights. Lane was a 10—term president of the American Guild of Authors and Composers. Lerner was president of the Dramatists Guild of America.

“On a Clear Day You Can See Forever” (On a Clear Day You Can See Forever; Disc 01 Track 08) from the 1987 live recording of “An Evening with Alan Jay Lerner” featuring Elaine Paige