Thank you to everyone who continues to explore my blog even though I have not been posting a lot lately.

It is very exciting — and satisfying — to check my stats and see the many different blog posts people have visited during the past week.

One blog post which gets a surprising (to me) amount of traffic is about the composer Harry Warren.

He wrote the music for the song in the player at the beginning of this blog post along with lyricist Arthur Freed.

You can click here if you are curious to learn more about Harry Warren by reading my extremely loooong blog post from eight years ago (which also includes recordings of several of his hit songs).

Mr. Warren and Mr. Freed wrote “This Heart Of Mine” for a 1944 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) musical called the ZIEGFELD FOLLIES which starred Fred Astaire.

I think I first heard it sung by Judy Garland, who recorded it the following year for Decca Records.

Arthur Freed also wrote the lyrics for a bunch of other hit songs — such as “Singing In The Rain,” “You Are My Lucky Star,” and “Make ‘Em Laugh.”

You can click here to check out his Wikipedia page if you are curious to learn more about him.

I haven’t read any biographies about him (yet) but according to Wikipedia, he lived a fascinating life.

He was born in South Carolina in 1894, and ended up attending a very prestigious prep school in New Hampshire — Phillips Exeter Academy. I am guessing he was probably one of very few Jewish students on campus — and according to Wikipedia, he became interested in writing poetry there.

After prep school Mr. Freed ended up in Chicago and performed with early versions of the Marx Brothers act (!!!) in vaudeville.

He also wrote special material for them, which led to co-writing enough successful songs that Hollywood beckoned…and he was hired to write songs for early MGM musicals.

After many years at MGM, Freed transitioned from songwriter to producer, working (as an uncredited associate producer ) on THE WIZARD OF OZ and then officially producing his first movie, BABES IN ARMS.

Both of these films, as you probably know, starred Judy Garland.

Mr. Freed went on to produce many more of Garland’s movies including LITTLE NELLIE KELLY, FOR ME AND MY GAL, THE CLOCK, and MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS — which is where she met her second husband, the director Vincente Minnelli, whom Freed had brought from New York City to work at MGM.

According to Wikipedia, Freed hired great talent and then gave them free rein to do their thing — whether it was choreography, costumes, set design, songwriting, direction, etc.

He also gave himself free rein to do some very odd and abusive things, such as exposing his penis to a young Shirley Temple when she came for a visit to discuss doing a movie at MGM — and making sexual advances towards her mother as well.

Temple wrote about this incident in her autobiography — and apparently Mr. Freed experienced no censure as a result of his horrible behavior…

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

This reminds me of the ongoing conversations about Michael Jackson’s artistic and personal legacies…

Does one discard and avoid the music/art/products made by someone who does horrible things to other beings?

One of Mr. Freed’s most famous movies is SINGING IN THE RAIN, which re-used a bunch of his early hit songs.

Do we stop delighting in the the extraordinary dancing and singing of this movie because the producer was at times a perverse, abusive creep?

Perhaps this is something each one of us must decide for herself/himself…

I apologize for veering into this intense psychological and ethical territory.

I thought this blog post would be more light-hearted — to match the mood of the song.

However, human life is many-layered… full of contradictions, fallibility and mistakes.

Thank you to the (sometimes very flawed) songwriters who have given us wonderful music to lift our spirits year after year after year.

Thank you to pianist/producer Doug Hammer for his tremendous collaborative gifts.

Thank you to graphic designer Stephen C. Fischer for his ongoing work on behalf of my music.

Thank you to the photographers at Pixabay and to Diane Yoder for her composite image of Arthur Freed.

And thank YOU for reading and listening to another one of my blog posts.

If you’d care to stream this song — and maybe even “like” it — on your favorite music streaming platform, you are welcome to click here.

And you are always welcome to visit my website — and sign up for my very sporadic and under-utilized emailing list — by clicking here.