The Big Story Behind a Little Song

The word "legendary" can be overused. But sometimes, it actually does apply. In the case of Gus Kahn, he was simply a legendary songwriter in every sense of the word. And his wife Grace was a wonderful and successful musical composer in her own right.

How legendary?

Among countless songs, Gus Kahn wrote the words to some of the most classic songs in American music history. These included "It Had to Be You," "Dream a Little Dream of Me," "Carolina in the Morning" ("Nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina...") "Makin' Whoopee," "Yes Sir! That's My Baby," "Toot Toot Tootsie," "San Francisco" ("Open your Golden Gate..."), "Ain't We Got Fun," "I'll See You in My Dreams," and so many more. Even though, after 70 years, some of these songs might not be recognized by name, they're instantly recognized when heard. Because, remarkably, 70 years after being written they're still being sung, still being used in movies, and even still used on commercials.

How legendary?

A major motion picture was made about Gus and Grace Kahn's life. Titled I'll See You in My Dreams, it starred Danny Thomas and Doris Day, and was released by Warner Bros. in 1951. Let's be honest here: that doesn't happen for most people.

Just five years ago, the Grammy-winning team of Joan Morris and William Bolcom recorded a CD devoted entirely to the songs of Gus Kahn.

And among all Gus and Grace Kahn's many legendary credits, there's one other song they wrote, as well.

"Thanks for the Pines."

Er, "Thanks for the Pines"?

It all came about because the Kahns had sent their 12-year-old son Donald to summer camp at Camp Nebagamon in 1931.

I will admit to being a little biased because I went to Camp Nebagamon, as both a camper and counselor. But it's sort of a remarkable camp. For starters, it's been around for 80 years, founded in 1929 by the equally remarkable Max (known as "Muggs") and Janet Lorber. It sits in the tiny town of Lake Nebagamon, Wisconsin, in the heart of the North Woods wilderness, on the grounds of the original Weyerhauser lumber mill. In fact, some of its cabins and structures are the original lumberjack facilities.

The camp even has its share of famous alumni. Most notably, John Kander went there, long before he wrote the music for such Broadway musicals as Cabaret and Chicago as well as the song "New York, New York." So, too, did brothers William Goldman (who won Oscars for writing "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "All the President's Men") and James Goldman, author of the Broadway shows Follies, with Stephen Sondheim, and The Lion in Winter (winning his own Oscar). In fact, all three collaborated on a musical, A Family Affair. It's probably not generally known that that teaming had its start at summer camp.

But all the other famous alumni aside, and biased as I am, the reality is that there simply aren't many summer camps with an official camp song that comes from such impressively high pedigree.

For many decades, however, the song existed only in the ether, as words and music. But a few years ago, I was asked to track down its history by Bernard and Sally Stein, who ran the camp for 30 years, taking it over from her parents, the Lorbers. They figured that there had to be some tale that explained how a couple of the most renowned songwriters in the history of the Great American Songbook came to write their camp's song.

And so there was. And therein lies the tale. The history at last revealed. And it began with finding Donald Kahn -- in 1931, the young camper who was the cause of it all.

Looking back over a great many years of his lifetime, Donald Kahn was surrounded by mementos of his own successful life, but still remembered with fondness the events that surrounded the writing of that song, during the summer when he first attended Camp Nebagamon.

"I had never been to a camp before," he recalled, "so my parents came up from our home in Chicago to visit during Parents Visiting Week."

Those parents, Gus and Grace Kahn, also split their time at Camp Nebagamon with visits to another nearby camp, where their daughter Irene was spending the summer. But there was something about Nebagamon that struck them as special.

"I think what they liked the most about it," Donald Kahn laughed, "is that it got my sister and me out of the house for two months. But they really loved Nebagamon. After all, they sent me back the next year -- all the way from California where we had moved."

While visiting their son at Nebagamon, the Kahns not only loved what was there -- they also noticed something that wasn't there. There was no camp song. "And of course, being professional songwriters, they couldn't stand it, that the camp didn't have its own song," said Donald.

Over in the Rec Hall sat a piano. And the creative juices began to flow. "Knowing my father, I'm sure he wrote the words first." And then came the music of Grace. The Kahns went to the camp director and founders Muggs and Janet Lorber and made a very simple request, "Do you mind if we use the piano?"

There was one minor problem to be faced: Grace Kahn hadn't expected to do any songwriting on this trip and didn't bring any music sheet paper along. While Gus Kahn had written the lyrics out, Grace had to remember the exact music she'd written. It was only later, when they returned to Chicago, that the song was finally put down on paper. All that was left was its debut performance -- just days later.

"That Saturday night there was a camp show," Donald Kahn related. "My mother was a very good pianist and a very good singer, and my father was a good singer, too. You have to remember, in their early days they had demonstrated songs (which is how songwriters tried to sell material to publishers and singers), and they even performed, so they were very used to doing that sort of thing."

(In fact, it was as a song plugger that Grace Kahn met Groucho Marx. Years later, one of his favorite songs when he entertained was a number that Gus and Grace wrote together, "Oh, How That Woman Could Cook." The connection goes further, since Groucho and the Kahns eventually became in-laws.)

According to Jimmy Ullman, a boyhood friend and cabin-mate of Donald Kahn, the words to "Thanks for the Pines" for that very first performance were copied out onto individual sheets so that all the campers, counselors and staff could have them. And then, with the lyrics at hand, everybody sang along with the composers.

Usually, it takes a few years for something to catch on, to create an emotional impact with people. But not with "Thanks for the Pines." "It became the official camp song instantly," Donald said with great emphasis. "That was it."

It's safe to say that most camp songs exist solely in their own world of camp. "Thanks for the Pines," however, surprisingly had a life of its own. After Gus and Grace Kahn returned home to Chicago, their little camp song did the unprecedented -- it got performed on the radio.

"It's important to understand," said Donald Kahn, who himself was a songwriter and music publisher before he passed away last year at the age of 89, "at that point in his life, my father was probably one of the most successful songwriters in the country. He was an intimate and friend and collaborator with people like George Gershwin. And Irving Berlin published a lot of his songs."

Indeed, with its unique pedigree for a camp song, "Thanks for the Pines" got performed even further away from its camp home:

As happens when professional songwriters gather for a party, inevitably everybody goes to the piano and takes a turn to play something. The "something" is usually one of the writer's personal gems, as each artist tries to impress the other artists.

"Every once in a while, my folks would play the song at one of those gatherings. And the other songwriters would look at them like they were crazy," Donald Kahn laughed, sitting in his warm living room in Beverly Hills. "I mean, they'd be expecting to hear 'Makin' Whoopee' and instead they'd get 'Thanks for the Pines Around You'! My parents loved that song. They felt very special about it."

And it almost never came to pass.

As a boy, Gus Kahn had been classmates with Lionel Ullman at temple where they'd both been confirmed. Time slipped away, and the two youngsters lost track of each other for 20 years. Then, one day, by pure chance, on separate family vacations in Florida, the now grown-up Kahn and Ullman ran into one another. Friendships were re-ignited, and the sons Donald Kahn and Jimmy Ullman became best friends. When the Ullmans decided to send their son to Camp Nebagamon, it was a natural course of events that Donald Kahn would go, too.

"In recruiting campers, Muggs and Janet Lorber used to come around to your house," Kahn said. "I can still remember all the excitement when they came, and we were talking about my going. It was like the biggest thing that ever happened."

And 70 years later? "Jimmy Ullman and I are still close friends," he noted at the time. "And we can both still sing the song."

There is probably no better description of the camp motto: Keep the Fires Burning.

One day, half a century after the song was written, I was lucky enough to be at a small gathering where, as it happened, Grace Kahn herself was attending. An elegant, friendly and still lively woman, she sat in the living room, reminiscing about her career and life in music. At one point, when someone sat down at the piano, she sang (in her 90s) what is still to this day the most sweet, yet risqué version of "Makin' Whoopee" I have ever heard. Yet for all her accomplishments during a very long life, she told a story during that evening that amazed even her:

"My husband and I wrote some of the greatest songs ever written," she quietly commented, not immodestly, just honestly, "and more people have come up and talked to me about 'Thanks for the Pines' than any other."

It's a song that has lasted through the changing generations, through the changing tastes, through the changes of society. And it's done so for a very simple reason. Hearing the words sung to her after the passage, at the time, of five decades, a gentle smile of memory came to Grace Kahn's face. "You know..." she said, as her eyes sparkled and she sat up in a comfortable chair, "...that is a wonderful song!"

Thanks for the pines around you.
Thanks for the sky so blue.
Thanks for the summer day I found you
And hearts I found so true.
Thanks for the silver moonlight.
Thanks for the golden sun.
For the memories of you
That will live all year through
Thank you, Camp Nebagamon.
Thank you, Camp Nebagamon.

-- Gus and Grace Kahn

Comments

[Dlong]

I too am a CN alum ('51 - '61) and, though I had known who wrote the song, I did not know all the background covered in the story. It was most interesting and, of course, brought back many fond memories of the North Woods. My wife and I, as part of an extended road trip this time last year went back to camp in July '08; was delighted to find that it had not changed a bit! I could still see Muggs sauntering down the path from the Big House to the Rec Hall each morning singing "Oh, what a beautiful morning."

[mawmer]

Great piece, Bob! Brings back lots of good memories. For three generations, the boys and men of my family have sung "Thanks for the Pines", and I have more affection for it than I do for any other musical work. It was the first lullaby I crooned to my infant sons (as part of a medley that included "We Shall Keep the Friend We Found Here" and "All Night, All Day"), and it still gets regularly hummed and whistled and sung in the shower by all the males in our household (after five summers of Family Camp, my wife still hasn't mastered the Camp songbook). KTFB, Michael Weinberg

[emjar]

Bob:

What a nice way of knowing that you're alive. Great blog. You're still an air riflery god!

[KrisKrosshaul]

In 1973 Bob provided Camp Negamon one of its great original plays. I remember it well. A Sunday evening dramedy, "The Last Comedian," that beautifully taught a lesson on the role of humor, courage, and personal responsibility.
It is great to read Bob's writing in this story, simple and true.

[Robert J. Elisberg - Huffpost Blogger]

I appreciate all the extremely kind comments here -- both from the wonderful camp names, but also those who'd never heard of Camp Nebagamon before, let alone can't pronounce it. From all the notes here, as well as private emails that have arrived, it's nice to know that this song has continued to strike a chord with people. (And no, no pun was intended. I think.)

I would say "Keep the fires burning," as well, but since some good friends recently had the still-burning Santa Barbara fire come within two miles of their home, I hope people here will accept me holding off on that for a few weeks...

[Agikamik]

A GREAT BIG HOW GOES OUT TO BOBBY ELLISBERG FROM THE YOYO ISLANDS FOR THIS WONDERFUL ARTICLE.
IT IS RARE THAT I WILL PASS A DRINKING FOUNTAIN WITHOUT TAKING A DRINK OR PASS A PIANO WITHOUT SITTING DOWN TO PLAY THANKS FOR THE PINES.
YOU HAVE SHARED JUST A TASTE OF NEBAGAMON AND THIS WONDERFUL SONG WITH THE REST OF THE WORLD.
KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK.
BUD SCHRAM

[Reed Maidenberg]

Hey Buddy...nice to see your comment!

[Danny Cohen]

Great story. I'm two summers removed from being a camper and a counselor at Nebagamon after doing 12 summers there. I never realized the song had such a famous author. KTFB .

[Reed Maidenberg]

I too was a camper and a counselor at Camp Nebagamon; had Muggs and Janet visit my parents' house in small town Indiana in 1958; visited them in Miami years later; and became good friends with Nardie and Sally. I have photos of myself performing in that same Rec Hall in 1962. I never knew this complete story of Thanks For The Pines. I always loved that song, and now love it even more. Thanks, Robert Elisberg!

[3fingerbrown]

Thanks for honoring one of Tin Pan Alley's most under-appreciated craftsmen (I was about to type "unsung," but that's certainly the wrong adjective in this case).

Other Kahn titles that might ring a bell with modern readers: "My Buddy," "Pretty Baby" (Everybody loves a baby, that's why I'm in love with you ...), and "Love Me or Leave Me," which TCM watchers know as the title song of a great biopic of the '50s, starring Doris Day and Jimmy Cagney.

[cnalum]

What a nice piece. It brought back memories of my 14 summers as a camper and counselor at Camp Nebagamon. I am a contemporary of the writer and knew him at camp. The camp song is one tidbit among many that created an aura making Nebagamon a magical place for so many of us. Lots of institutions talk about teaching values. This place really did.

[Artfullyaware]

What a fantastically sweet story! Made me smile...