__ “The writing of ‘Ebb Tide,’ like songwriting and like almost anything else connected with art and the art world, was fundamentally an indefinable phenomenon. The absurd combination of circumstances, pressures and motivations which produced the lyrics that go with that tune (and indeed tune writing is an altogether different, and even more mysterious, subject) can never be explained. The explanation is the song itself, and the observations I’ve given here are merely the humorous and surface explanations of a phenomenon which, if it deserves anything, deserves to be listened to rather than read about. So if this chapter or this book does anything for anyone, I hope that it will make him listen to some of the music we are talking about. There is a rich tradition filled with many beautiful songs in the popular music field, and only by listening and listening again will one fully appreciate the anecdotes and observations I and my fellow songwriters are offering.”
Now, listen to the songs. >

Carl and Terry Sigman with Percy Faith, January 1956

“Sammy Cahn once told me that Carl Sigman was the only pop songwriter whose catalog he envied. And for good reason. Unlike men like Irving Berlin and Cole Porter who worked (except very early in their careers) exclusively by themselves, words and music, Carl was in the tradition of other great writers like Walter Donaldson, Richard Whiting and Johnny Mercer who sometimes wrote lyrics and other times music.”

—Ervin Drake, songwriter and former head of the Songwriters Guild