Lamplighting and Labor Days

Late August. The days are imperceptibly shorter…until suddenly, dusk settles over everything and it’s autumn all over again. Back in the day, that’s when the old lamplighter would go to work.

So say songwriters Nat Simon and Charles Tobias, who authored one of the biggest smash hits of 1946 with “The Old Lamplighter” — an impossibly sleepy, sentimental tribute to a bygone profession.

Sammy Kaye took it to #1 on the Billboard Best Sellers Chart that very year.

In fact, it made the Top 10 for three different artists right out of the gate. Granted, this song hits like a tranquilizer dart. But in 1946, it was a banger.

It may be a relic to our ears, but there is something fascinating about this little slice of nostalgia. Perhaps that’s why it was so successful with listeners at the time.

Let’s back up for just a minute. What the hell is a lamplighter?

A lamplighter was a person whose job it was to go out every evening and light the village lampposts, and to return every dawn to extinguish those same lights. Small towns and growing cities first conceived of street lighting in the 1600s. For the next 200 years, they would use either candles or oil to light the night.

Gas lamps were introduced in the early 1800s. At first, the lamplighter’s job remained secure. But over the next several decades, the advent of automatically igniting gas lamps greatly diminished the need for his services.

With the arrival of electric street lamps at the end of the century, the lamplighter was an endangered species. By the time Simon and Tobias wrote their ode, he was all but extinct. By the mid 20th century, most of the gas lamp systems were gone from the big cities.

To this day, some cities and towns retain gas lamps for nostalgic effect. And that is exactly the effect that made “The Old Lamplighter” so moving in its time and place. A wistful singer pines for the the good ‘ol days in a rapidly modernizing post-war America. If you were living through it, it’s easy to see how this tune could hit all the feels.

“The Old Lamplighter” didn’t just hit all the feels in 1946. It also hit all the charts. Sammy Kaye’s version made the Billboard Best Sellers list on November 8th.

Kay Kyser & His Orchestra released their version on November 22nd, ultimately peaking at #3.

Two weeks later, Hal Derwin released his version and eventually reached #6.

Three competing versions of a hit song in one month? Yup. That’s a thing people did back then. And for good reason. People just could not get enough of this tune. There were at least 8 other commercially released versions on significant record labels between 1946 and 1947.

And then it was all over.

Bing Crosby recorded a notable, non-charting version in the 1950s. Otherwise, like the lamplighter himself, the smash hit retreated into memory over the next 15 years.

In 1960, the Browns dusted off “The Old Lamplighter” and scored a huge crossover country hit. They reached #5 on the mainstream Billboard Hot 100.

This version was significant for introducing a new generation of listeners to the lamplighter just at the dawn of the folk revival. As musicians reached back in time for material, the Browns provided a blueprint and a boilerplate. Countless versions and live performances followed.

Slim Whitman did one in 1961.

Mac Wiseman released a cut in 1962.

In 1968, The Lamplighter even made a brief reappearance as an antagonist of DC Comics hero, the Green Lantern. Presumably, his super-power was the ability to wake up earlier than everybody else in his village.

And thanks to an up-and-coming singer named Bjork (1990), we know that the Icelandic word for lamplighter is “Lukta-Gvendur”.

Of course, if “The Old Lamplighter” already felt nostalgic in 1946, it sounds positively ancient today. Still, I think there’s something romantic in it…and even a little foreboding. The idea of being made obsolete by encroaching technology feels pretty current and relatable.

But I digress.

Even if lighting lamps for a living sounds like a super cushy gig, I thought it might be nice to tip a cap to the old lamplighter on the approach of Labor Day.

Meantime, here’s a playlist of songs made by people who sound like they’re actually working pretty hard.