I Surrender Dear


"I Surrender Dear" is a song composed by Harry Barris with lyrics by Gordon Clifford. It is debatable who first performed this, though Bing Crosby performed the song in 1931, which became his first solo hit. On the same year, it was performed by Sam Lanin, as well as Ben Selvin, under the pseudonym "Mickie Alpert". It has been covered by many artists, making it a jazz and pop standard. The first jazz vocalist to record the song was Louis Armstrong in 1931.
The song is referenced in the 1949 war film Battleground, which depicts the hardships of American troops attempting to hold the town of Bastogne in late December 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge. German radio is heard broadcasting the song to the entrenched American troops to demoralize them. This psychological warfare is shown to have the opposite effect on the GIs, who hum along, but prefer to hear real American radio.
"I Surrender Dear" inspired two motion pictures bearing that title: a 1931 Bing Crosby musical short I Surrender Dear produced by Mack Sennett, and a 1948 feature film starring one of Crosby's co-stars, singer Gloria Jean. An instrumental 1930s-esque Jazz cover of this song was recorded for the 1996 movie Kansas City as part of the soundtrack. This song was also the comical introduction to the pre-code film, The Tip Off 1931, in which actor Eddie Quillan is a window singer at a radio repair shop. He mouths the song while it is being played over a new "Human Voice Amplifier".

Renditions