"A Perfect Day" (first line: "When you come to the end of a perfect day") is a

parlor song Parlour music is a type of popular music which, as the name suggests, is intended to be performed in the parlours of houses, usually by amateur singers and pianists. Disseminated as sheet music, its heyday came in the 19th century, as a result of ...

written by

Carrie Jacobs-Bond Carrie Minetta Jacobs-Bond (August 11, 1862 – December 28, 1946) was an American singer, pianist, and songwriter who composed some 175 pieces of popular music from the 1890s through the early 1940s. She is perhaps best remembered for writing t ...

(1862–1946) in 1909 at the Mission Inn,

Riverside, California Riverside is a city in and the county seat of Riverside County, California, United States, in the Inland Empire metropolitan area. It is named for its location beside the Santa Ana River. It is the most populous city in the Inland Empire an ...

. Jacobs-Bond wrote the lyrics after watching the sun set over

Mount Rubidoux Mount Rubidoux is a mountain just west of downtown in the city of Riverside, California, United States, that has been designated a city park and landmark. The mountain was once a popular Southern California tourist destination and is still the sit ...

from her 4th-floor room. She came up with the tune three months later while touring the

Mojave Desert The Mojave Desert ( ; mov, Hayikwiir Mat'aar; es, Desierto de Mojave) is a desert in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the Southwestern United States. It is named for the indigenous Mojave people. It is located primarily in ...

. For many years the Mission Inn played "A Perfect Day" on its

carillon A carillon ( , ) is a pitched percussion instrument that is played with a keyboard and consists of at least 23 cast-bronze bells. The bells are hung in fixed suspension and tuned in chromatic order so that they can be sounded harmoniou ...

at the end of each day.

Popularity

"A Perfect Day" was phenomenally successful when first published in 1910. Eight million copies of the sheet music and five million recordings sold within a year; 25 million copies of the sheet music sold during Jacobs-Bond's lifetime, and many millions of recordings circulated as various artists performed the song on the fast-growing means of audio duplication. ''Cf.'
Jacobs-Bond on Answers.com.
/ref> It was her most-requested number when Jacobs-Bond entertained the soldiers at U.S. Army camps in Europe during World War I. The popularity of "A Perfect Day" became so rampant that even Jacobs-Bond indicated in her autobiography that she had "tired" of hearing it. Along with "

Just Awearyin' for You "Just Awearyin' for You" is a parlor song, one of that genre's all-time hits. The lyrics were written by Frank Lebby Stanton and published in his ''Songs of the Soil'' (1894). The tune was composed by Carrie Jacobs-Bond#Personal life, Carrie ...

" and "

I Love You Truly "I Love You Truly" is a parlor song written by Carrie Jacobs-Bond. Since its publication in 1901 it has been sung at weddings, recorded by numerous artists over many decades, and heard on film and television. History Carrie Jacobs-Bond began to ...

"—both published in 1901 as part of the collection '' Seven Songs as Unpretentious as the Wild Rose''—"A Perfect Day" augmented Jacobs-Bond's career as the first woman who made a living from composing. According to "Backstairs At the White House" by former White House seamstress

Lillian Rogers Parks Lillian Rogers Parks (February 1, 1897 – November 6, 1997) was an American housemaid and seamstress in the White House. With the journalist Frances Spatz Leighton, co-author of a number of White House memoirs, Parks published ''My Thirty Yea ...

, "A Perfect Day" was the favorite song of First Lady

Florence Harding Florence Mabel Harding (née Kling; August 15, 1860 – November 21, 1924) was the first lady of the United States from 1921 until her husband's death in 1923 as the wife of President Warren G. Harding. Florence first married Pete De Wolfe ...

. She often had it played at White House concerts. "A Perfect Day" was in the ship's songbook when made its fatal maiden voyage in 1912.

Artists

"A Perfect Day" has been frequently recorded in English. Otto Leisner's Norwegian translation was popularized by

Sissel Kyrkjebø Sissel Kyrkjebø (; born 24 June 1969), also simply known as Sissel, is a Norwegian soprano. Sissel is considered one of the world's top crossover sopranos. Her musical style ranges from pop recordings and folk songs, to classical vocals and op ...

In English

Besides the plaintive 1915 McKee Trio instrumental rendition linked in this article, "A Perfect Day" has been recorded by numerous artists from various backgrounds, including: In the 1940 feature film ''

Remember the Night ''Remember the Night'' is a 1940 American Christmas romantic comedy trial film starring Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray and directed by Mitchell Leisen. The film was written by Preston Sturges and was the last of his scripts shot by another d ...

'',

Sterling Holloway Sterling Price Holloway Jr. (January 4, 1905 – November 22, 1992) was an American actor and voice actor who appeared in over 100 films and 40 television shows. He did voice acting for The Walt Disney Company, playing Mr. Stork in ''Dumbo'', Ad ...

sang "A Perfect Day" accompanied by

Barbara Stanwyck Barbara Stanwyck (; born Ruby Catherine Stevens; July 16, 1907 – January 20, 1990) was an American actress, model and dancer. A stage, film, and television star, during her 60-year professional career she was known for her strong, realistic sc ...

at the piano. In 1945, opera soprano

Helen Traubel Helen Francesca Traubel (June 16, 1899July 28, 1972) was an American opera and concert singer. A dramatic soprano, she was best known for her Wagnerian roles, especially those of Brünnhilde and Isolde. Born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, s ...

recorded an

andante Andante may refer to: Arts * Andante (tempo), a moderately slow musical tempo * Andante (manga), ''Andante'' (manga), a shōjo manga by Miho Obana * Andante (song), "Andante" (song), a song by Hitomi Yaida * "Andante, Andante", a 1980 song by A ...

interpretation. In the 1940s,

Alfredo Antonini Alfredo Antonini (May 31, 1901 – November 3, 1983) was a leading Italian-American symphony conductor and composer who was active on the international concert stage as well as on the CBS radio and television networks from the 1930s through the ea ...

and his orchestra collaborated with Victoria Cordova and

John Serry Sr. John Serry Sr. (born John Serrapica; January 29, 1915 – September 14, 2003) was an American concert accordionist, arranger, composer, organist, and educator. He performed on the CBS Radio and Television networks and contributed to Voic ...

to record the song for

Muzak Muzak is an American brand of background music played in retail stores and other public establishments. The name has been in use since 1934, and has been owned by a division or subsidiary of one or another company ever since. In 1981, Westingh ...

Norma Zimmer Norma Zimmer (July 13, 1923 – May 10, 2011) was an American vocalist, best remembered for her 22-year tenure as Lawrence Welk's "Champagne Lady" on ''The Lawrence Welk Show''. Early years Born Norma Larsen on a dairy farm in Shoshone County, Id ...

sang "A Perfect Day" on the ''

Lawrence Welk Show ''The Lawrence Welk Show'' is an American televised musical variety show hosted by big band leader Lawrence Welk. The series aired locally in Los Angeles for four years, from 1951 to 1955, then nationally for another 16 years on ABC from 1955 t ...

'' in 1962 in response to thousands of requests. In 1976, American tenor, Robert White, concluded his first album with RCA Records, ''When You and I Were Young, Maggie'', with "A Perfect Day" accompanied by pianist Samuel Sanders.

In Norwegian ("En deilig dag")

Danish journalist Otto Leisner (1917–2008) translated "A Perfect Day" into Norwegian as "En deilig dag"; this translation has been recorded by, among others,

Character

"A Perfect Day" exemplifies the sentimentality popular in the late Victorian and post-

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...

but has risen above such a sequestered view by nuances of studied reflection which, combined with the

chord progressions In a musical composition, a chord progression or harmonic progression (informally chord changes, used as a plural) is a succession of chords. Chord progressions are the foundation of harmony in Western musical tradition from the common practic ...

of Jacobs-Bond's tune, have borne its appeal across time and cultural boundaries. "A Perfect Day" persists as an

elegy An elegy is a poem of serious reflection, and in English literature usually a lament for the dead. However, according to ''The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy'', "for all of its pervasiveness ... the 'elegy' remains remarkably ill defined: sometime ...

using the analogy of the end of day as the end of life. In 1929, at

Lake Arrowhead, California Lake Arrowhead is an unincorporated community and a census-designated place (CDP) in the San Bernardino Mountains of San Bernardino County, California, surrounded by the San Bernardino National Forest, and surrounding the eponymous Lake Arrowhead ...

, with "A Perfect Day" playing on a

phonograph A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...

, Jacobs-Bond's only child, Frederick Jacobs Smith, committed suicide.Rick Reublein
"America's First Great Woman Popular Song Composer" site.
The death of her only child affected Jacobs-Bond profoundly. She dedicated her 1940 book of poetry, ''The End of the Road'', to him. p. iii.

External links

Sheet music for "A Perfect Day"
1910.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Perfect Day 1909 songs American songs California culture Mojave Desert Music of California Parlor songs Paul Robeson songs Pop standards Sissel Kyrkjebø songs Songs about California Songs about death Songs of World War I Songs of World War II Songs written by Carrie Jacobs-Bond Southern California Vaudeville songs