Sammy Cahn was a songwriter in the classic American mold. Raised Samuel Cohen by Jewish immigrants on the Lower East Side of New York City, Cahn cut his chops as a musician in Bar Mitzvah bands, Atlantic City hotels, and Catskills resorts before penning the English lyrics for "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen," a breakout hit for the Andrews Sisters. With collaborators Saul Chaplin, Jules Styne, and Jimmy van Heusen, he went on to write some of the best-known lyrics of the '40s, '50s, and '60s, including "It’s Been a Long, Long Time," "My Kind of Town," "All the Way," "Love and Marriage," "High Hopes," "Come Fly With Me," and "Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!"
He had a way with the vernacular and knew the difference between a rhyme and a singable rhyme. As he once said, "if the word orange is unrhymable, locksmiths is unsingable. And singability is the difference between a poem and a lyric." He also said, "I am often asked, 'Which comes first — the words or the music?' I answer that what comes first is the phone call asking you to write a song."
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