Moonlight Serenade

When my mom died from complications of dementia, all her friends were long gone, and it was just me, my best friend of 60 years, and my husband at the cemetery to tell her goodbye. It was freezing cold, so I played a few songs, and my friend took some photos. When "Moonlight Serenade" came on my little MP3 amplifier, I cried (again). My husband took me in his arms, and we danced because my mother loved to dance.

#3 Moonlight Serenade Glenn Miller 1935/1939

One of my earliest memories is from the late 1950s and this huge (it seemed to a pre-

elementary school child) entertainment center that my parents had. The cabinet was upholstered in a kind of tan padded leather (or vinyl) with decorative (and purposed) upholstery tacks. On top was a big, brown Bakelite radio and the controls to switch to the turntable inside the cabinet where dozens of 75 rpm records were carefully stored in book-like albums. Among them, and perhaps some of the most numerous were recordings by the Glenn Miller Orchestra. Glen Miller was a trombone player from Iowa (my home state) who had dropped out of college to play jazz. My mother would load a stack of 75s on the spindle and clean house, dance, sing, and laugh. One of my favorites was “Moonlight Serenade.” There are versions with lyrics, but I don’t much care for them.

“Moonlight Serenade” was originally just called “Miller’s Tune” when composed in 1935. However, the orchestra it was always a crowd favorite. It went from publisher to publisher until Mitchell Parrish set lyrics to it and renamed it “Wind in the Trees.” The band continued to play it every time they appeared until it was recorded and released as the B side of “Sunrise Serenade.” To reflect the A side, it was renamed “Moonlight Serenade.” The B side became the hit and the theme song for Miller’s orchestra.

I love the sounds of the woodwinds and the muted brass and how it takes me back to my mother when she was happiest, the sunlight catching the diamond in her engagement ring and throwing rainbows on the wall, when I didn’t have any cares. I can still hear her singing “Little Brown Jug,” “Chattanooga Choo-Choo,” and “Pennsylvania 6-5000.”

Nine months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Miller enlisted in the Army. In less than a year, he was director of bands for the Army Air Forces Training Command, developing bands at bases across the country and leading his own elite concert orchestra (the American Band of the Allied Expeditionary Forces ) and radio production unit. He also served as a war bonds spokesperson and an Army Air Force recruiter. He was 40 years old on December 15, 1944, when he disappeared in his C-64 Norseman single engine plane over the English Channel on his way to Versailles, France. So, he was long dead when I came along, but his music is timeless, at least to me.


When my mother passed from complications of dementia, all her friends were gone, so it was just me, my best friend (my sister from another mother), and my husband. I'd prepared a few words and some songs to play on my MP3 amplifier. When "Moonlight Serenade" came on, I cried (again), and my husband took me into his arms and we began to dance. My mother loved to dance.

Listen here:
Spotify: Glenn Miller's "Moonlight Serenade"