David Remnick: This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, and we're going to close with a tribute to one of the great modern practitioners of the mysterious art of the earworm. Charles Strouse wrote for film and television, and he won Tony Awards for Broadway shows, including Bye Bye Birdie. [music]

Dick Van Dyke: [sings] Gray skies are gonna clear up,

Put on a happy face

Brush off the clouds and cheer up

David Remnick: He'll be best remembered for the musical Annie, the gateway drug to Broadway for generations of kids.

Female Speaker: We're going to do it all over.

Charles Strouse: Hello, hello, hello. You're a new face?

Jeffrey Masters: I am Jeffrey at

David Remnick: Charles Strouse died this month at the age of 96. One of the last interviews he gave was to our producer Jeffrey Masters, who went to see Strouse at his home in Manhattan back in 2023.

Jeffrey Masters: I'mma now record, if that's okay?

Charles Strouse: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. [chuckles] Well, I'm going to suck my Flanagan.

Jeffrey Masters: The scene in his apartment, it was a lot. It was chaotic. He's currently going through his archives, just the boxes and boxes completely covering the floors. He's doing this in order to donate them to the Library of Congress.

Charles Strouse: I guess the Library of Congress, which collects life itself, they asked me. I wouldn't ask to do this.

Jeffrey Masters: In this box, here, to your tummy. We found-- Oh my God, sorry. There's the record from All in the Family.

Charles Strouse: I wrote it.

Jeffrey Masters: All right, the theme song for the show?

Charles Strouse: Norman Lear wanted to have a theme, but he couldn't afford a big orchestra. I brought up the fact that when I was a kid, we all used to sit around and my mother used to play, and so that's how I wrote it.

[sings] Boy, the tunes Glenn Miller played

Songs that made the hit parade

Guys like us, we had it made,

Those were the days.

[sings] And you knew who you were then-- That, she made that herself.

[sings] Girls were girls and men were men

Mister, we could use a man

Like Herbert Hoover again.

The song itself, as did the program, became very successful.

Jeffrey Masters: There's this huge framed picture of Jay-Z. The frame, the CD, and cassette tape from the album, it says Vol. 2... Hard Knock Life. Oh, it says it's from 1998.

[music]

[sings] It's the hard knock life

Jay-Z: [sings] From standin' on the corners boppin'

To drivin' some of the hottest cars New York has ever seen

For droppin' some of the hottest verses rap has ever heard

From the dope spot, with the smoke glock

Fleein' the murder scene, you know me well

Charles Strouse: I've mostly liked working with Jay-Z. There he is. He was surrounded by bodyguards and all kinds of people. There was finally one point in my life where we got together and sat and talked.

Jeffrey Masters: Oh, because he also produced the most recent Annie movie remake from 2014.

Charles Strouse: I do remember I won his heart in a way when I said, "You got to bring your wife with you." I was being very snotty, and he must have told her that.

Jeffrey Masters: Beyoncé?

Charles Strouse: Yes. It was a nice relationship, but most of the time, he was beyond such a small person as me.

Jeffrey Masters: In one of the boxes, we found a letter from Stephen Sondheim, and there's a funny part to it. Do you mind if I read it? Yes? Okay. This is dated July 22nd, 2008. He says, "Congratulations on your memoir that was just published." Then, he says, "I bought a copy yesterday, and naturally, immediately looked up references to myself."

Charles Strouse: [laughs]

Jeffrey Masters: [chuckles] Then, he supplies two corrections for you in case there are any future reprintings, he says. Was that kind of thing in character for him?

Charles Strouse: Stephen and I were friendly enemies. He didn't like me much. I didn't like him less. On the other hand, I respected him a lot. Stephen and I knew each other so long that I stood danger of invading his territory, but even that was not-- We came into two different worlds, but we were very old friends. He was my oldest friend in the theater.

Annie: [sings] Maybe far away

Or maybe real nearby

Jeffrey Masters: Right now, Annie is like surrounding us. There's posters on walls and pillows, but, also, in this box, it's Annie stationery and letterheads. Also, there's the Annie cookie jar on a shelf, there's Annie piggybank. With her big song, Tomorrow, you actually wrote it. Did you think that you'd struck gold?

Charles Strouse: I didn't think. I thought that was a disposable item that we needed necessary to keep the curtain up or down, but so many songs in musicals go through that motion. If a guy is a good theater composer, he learns to think with two voices, so to speak. One is, [sings] I love you, my darling. The other is I love you, my darling, but keep on going with that song because we have to bring in the detective soon.

I would say Tomorrow falls into that category. I needed some time. It's usually always that way when you're writing for the theater. It's a book writer most usually says he needs a song there or do it yourself rather than "Here's my symphony to the stars."

Jeffrey Masters: You originally thought that that song was disposable, as you said. In hindsight now, like, what do you think it is that makes that song so great?

Charles Strouse: I don't know. Maybe I do know. Maybe I'm being modest. I do think I'm talented. I think I'd write a song and I wanted to please the audience. I didn't know that it was going to be so big, and so I'm very proud if it made its mark.

Jeffrey Masters: I think that Tomorrow whether there's this beautiful simplicity to it where you can hear it and then most like to sing along with it during each reprise.

Charles Strouse: That's what a popular song should do. It should sound as though it was always there, but it never was until you thought of it. I think Tomorrow came to me that way. [hums] Ba-da-bi-dip-bip my-pa-ram. Bip-pa-ram-pa-ba-pa-pa-ba-pa-ram, de-re-pam. It's complicated melody. I'm looking at posters, and there're a lot of songs I've written that have not been classics like that.

Jeffrey Masters: I think that fortunately and unfortunately when a song that's as big as Tomorrow has gotten and has remained, it gets bigger than you. Your name, in many ways, is no longer associated with it. Has it bothered you in your career?

Charles Strouse: Not if I hear the song. No, not really. I never got what Lenny himself did. Irving Berlin did. No, I never had that luxury "And here's another Charles Strouse song." No, I never had that kind of reputation. It's a funny thing about composing. It comes from your heart in a way, but it really comes from nowhere. It's God-given. I would think that's a God-given gift that I've been fortunate enough to get. I'm getting old, look I'm on a walker. I don't play too well now.

[piano plays]

[sings] The sun'll come out tomorrow

Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow

There'll be sun

Just thinking about tomorrow

Clears away the cobwebs and the sorrow

'Til there's none

When I'm stuck with a day that's gray and lonely

I just stick out my chin and grin and say

Oh the sun will come out tomorrow

So you got to hang on until tomorrow

Come what may

Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you tomorrow

David Remnick: The late Charles Strouse, who died earlier this month, he spoke with Jeffrey Masters in 2023.

Charles Strouse: [sings] You're always a day away.

[laughs] I massacred that pretty well.

Jeffrey Masters: That was so good. Yes, that was fantastic.

Charles Strouse: [laughs]

Jeffrey Masters: Thank you.

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