“Let Me Call You Sweetheart” and Competition-as-Muse

This is the fourth of six chapters tracing how waltzes often became performed as duple-meter tunes, inflected with jazz style, via the collective innovation of the performance tradition. A concluding subsection explores the link between these songs and the lullaby, homecoming, and images of the torch and lovelight. Tennessee poet Beth Slater Whitson and Illinois composer Leo Friedman were cheated by Chicago publisher Will Rossiter; and therefore instead took “Let Me Call You Sweetheart” (1910) to Harold Rossiter, thus becoming part of a bitter brotherly feud. It sold six-million sheet music copies; endures as a singalong and Valentine’s Day favorite; became associated with the blues; and, analyzed here, is a pure love waltz sometimes converted into a swing tune by bands, crooners, and rock-and-rollers. Whitson’s fully personal lyric contributed to an increased intimacy in the genre. The discussion analyzes its use in movies, including Barney’s Big Adventure and The Rose.