Tillman: Writing hit song was as easy as writing a letter
This week in 1944: Gen. George Patton’s troops entered the Sarre valley and broke through Siegfried line; Washington reported U.S. troops had wiped out a Japanese convoy near Leyte in the Pacific— including six destroyers, four transports and 8,000 troops; FDR announced a sixth war loan drive— seeking $14 billion; and a singer/ songwriter from Ryan, Okla., had his second hit record.
According to some songwriters, some songs take days, even weeks or months, sometimes even years to complete— while other songs are finished in just a matter of minutes.
According to Floyd Tillman, his 1944 hit “Each Night at Nine” was one of the easy tunes to write.
He commented, “It was as easy to write that song as it was to write a letter. That song came from an Air Force barracks and it was just natural at the time. I had been restricted to camp at Ellington Field and there were rumors going around at the time that we were going to be shipped overseas. But it turned out to be just rumors. I wrote the song and later carried it to New York and played it for Dave Kapp at Decca Records and he liked it so we went into the studio and recorded it. The record was played a lot on network radio but folks couldn’t buy it because of the shellac shortage at that time.”
Tillman’s Decca Record single “Each Night at Nine” came on the country music charts Dec. 30, 1944 and peaked at No. 4. It was on the charts for eight weeks. It was the flipside of “G. I. Blues,” which came on the charts Dec. 16, 1944 and peaked at No. five.
Tillman placed 10 songs on the country music charts between 1944 and 1960.
He was inducted into The Songwriter’s Hall Of Fame in 1971 and inducted into The Country Music Hall Of Fame in 1984.
Tillman died August 22, 2003 at age 88.