In 1970, with the Beatles freshly dissolved, Ringo Starr released Sentimental Journey, an album of show tunes from the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. John Lennon called it embarrassing and critics mauled it, yet it sold 500,000 copies and hit number 22 in the US and number seven in the UK. This episode uses that contradiction to explore the Great American Songbook: what the canon actually is, where it came from, and why melodies written mostly between 1920 and 1960 refuse to fade away.

We visit Tin Pan Alley on West 28th Street, where music publishers crammed into buildings and the sound of dozens of pianos gave the block its name, and we meet the composers who built the canon, including Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Richard Rodgers, and Oscar Hammerstein II. The conversation explains the 32-bar AABA form, how jazz musicia ...