The Rating Game

Congratulations on your enjoyable, informative article “Overrated & Underrated” (May/June 1998). As for most underrated songwriter, I’m glad that the great Harry Warren is now the “King of the Songwriting Incognitos.” His real name was Salvatore Guaragna.

Some of Warren’s best-known songs were “Jeepers Creepers,” “On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe,” “That’s Amore,” “Lullaby of Broadway,” “An Affair to Remember,” and “You’ll Never Know,” to name just a few.

Warren was very upset that he was always in the shadow of Irving Berlin, but he did manage to maintain his sense of humor. During World War II, while listening to a radio report about the U.S. air operations over Germany, he remarked, “They’re bombing the wrong Berlin.”