Snail mail we call it, but in the days before textual rapid transit, when a long distance phone call carried horridly steep per-minute charges, a typed or handwritten letter was an effective way to communicate. Perhaps letter composition took more time, but that often meant more care and thought went into the process. Letters and postcards were dignified and chiseled in stone, so to speak (not that old Roger remembers getting chisel dust on his dinosaur-desk). Writing was the route to accessing strangers and friends without violating their inbox, or their mailbox. It was an art form, with rules of grammar taught relentlessly by our high school and college English instructors. “Going postal” had a civilized connotation. And – letters were hand-delivered by uniformed, professional carriers. Today, it is easy to unwittingly press send and have your life (or computer) crash down upon you. An errant keystroke could alert your entire community of friends to a private email; let your mailing list, in error, receive messages they were not intended to get. Such as a love (or hate) letter, or the email addresses and names of hundreds of famous non-blind copied recipients. Oops! One would really have to mess up to have folks receive hundreds of wrong letters. –

The first thing that strikes me is the fair number of notable folks who took the time to contact me with thoughtful and interesting letters. Beside my prized stack of Pete Seeger suggestions, critiques, and comments, are letters from the likes of Tom Lehrer, Jimmy Stewart, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Sammy Cahn, et.al. My goodness – and those the envelopes! A complete history of postage rate increases. These letters do not reside on a hard drive – nor were the hard copy words carried ephemerally over the phone lines – they are still here for reading and referencing and, I might add, are suitable for framing. Put a frame around an email or phone call?!

illustration by Meghan Merker

This walk down memory lane, was ironically enough, prompted by a recent Google alert. Popped up was a tie between Roger Alan Deitz and the late comedian, composer, and TV personality Steve Allen. “Why would our names be linked?” I mused. A click or two answered that question. According to a page on Google books, over thirty-two years ago, I sent a letter to Steve Allen enclosing a demo tape of humorous songs. Thankfully, only the answer is displayed, or part of the answer, as a wrap to the next page was hidden from view, prompting a search for the original letter (and book) from Steve Allen, which I now have read. It carried advice to a songwriter (me) and on songwriting. Not only did Mr. Allen respond, but, unbeknownst to me, in 1993, the affable former Tonight Show host included my letter in one of his humor books, a chapter on “Writing Funny Letters.” That would be Steve’s 42nd published book of an eventual 50 or so – this one, titled Make ’Em Laugh. Among other things, Steve accused me of giving him a heart attack (hopefully NOT the one that finally did him in a few years later). A flip of the pages revealed this hilarious letter among the Grouch Marx, George Burns, Mel Brooks, and David Letterman entries, not to mention the sidesplitting Edie Gorme and Anthony Newley notes. Mine, just after a letter to Irving “Swifty” Lazar and his spouse. There it was – on page 230, dated August 4, 1980, a letter from Steve. He obviously thought his prose jocular enough to embarrass me for having sent him that cassette tape. “It’s been such a long time since I’ve been addressed as ‘Sir,’” Allen wrote, “that the receipt of your letter sent me into shock, cardiac arrest, and a state of blatant mopery with a sprinkling of malfeasance in office.” Funny stuff. He continued:

“All seriousness aside, I’ve been telling fledgling songwriters for about thirty years that my most hysterically complimentary opinion of their material is unlikely to do them the slightest bit of concrete good. But do they listen to me? No! They go into the concrete business. So I’ll be glad to listen to your numbers, too. Actually there is the possibility – if they’re comedy material – that somewhere along the line I might be able to think of a use for them. But if they’re simply great songs like ‘Stardust,’ ‘Laura,’ ‘Tenderly,’ and so forth, you’ll probably never make it because you have too much talent and the market today is interested mostly in garbage.”
Jack Paar reportedly once quipped, “Steve Allen has claimed to have written over 1,000 songs. Name one.” Most of us can. Hint … this letter was not the start of something big. Actually, the way I heard it went, “Steve Allen has written thousands of songs, name two.” I’ve written hundreds of songs … and sometimes, even I can’t name one of them.

from Sing Out! v.55#2 (Winter 2013)
© 2013 The Sing Out Corporation / Roger Deitz