'I Didn't Know What Time It Was', was composed by Richard Charles Rodgers, 1902 – 1979, an American composer of more than 900 songs and for 43 Broadway musicals. (Bio by Jayne Anne Strutt.)
Richard Rodgers also composed music for films and television. He is best known for his songwriting partnerships with the lyricists Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II. His compositions have had a significant impact on popular music up to the present day, and have an enduring broad appeal.
Richard Rodgers
Richard Rodgers was the first person to win what are considered the top show business awards in television, recording, movies and Broadway -- an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony -- now known collectively as an EGOT. He has also won a Pulitzer Prize, making him one of two people (Marvin Hamlisch is the other) to receive each award.
Born into a prosperous German Jewish family in Arverne, Queens, New York City, Rodgers was the son of Mamie (Levy) and Dr. William Abrahams Rodgers, a prominent physician who had changed the family name from Abrahams.
Richard began playing the piano at age six. He attended Townsend Harris Hall and DeWitt Clinton High School. He spent his early teenage summers in Camp Wigwam (Waterford, Maine) where he composed some of his first songs.
Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, and later collaborator Oscar Hammerstein II all attended Columbia University. At Columbia, Rodgers joined the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity.
In 1921, Rodgers shifted his studies to the Institute of Musical Art (now the Juilliard School). He was influenced by composers such as Victor Herbert and Jerome Kern, as well as by the operettas his parents took him to see on Broadway when he was a child.
"I Didn't Know What Time It Was" is a popular song. The music was written by Richard Rodgers and the lyrics by Lorenz Hart for the musical "Too Many Girls" (1939). Early hit versions included Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw. The Crampton Sisters 1964 revival for the DCP label was a Hot 100 entry.
The song was introduced by Richard Kollmar and Marcy Westcott in the musical "Too Many Girls". It was performed by Trudy Erwin -- dubbing for Lucille Ball in the 1940 film version produced by RKO -- and interpolated into the score of the 1957 film "Pal Joey", where it was sung by Frank Sinatra.
Time ticks on and as the hustle and bustle subsides the city is left to the late and the lonely, those who remain inhabiting the neon-dappled, deserted streets. To some night time is a natural element, to others, stranded in a man-made wilderness, there is both a sense of excitement and fear, but a haunting feeling of melancholy begins to envelop all against the fading backdrop of those soft lights and sweet music. --
