The song “I Love You Truly” was phenomenally popular in the first half of the 20th century. Bing Crosby, Perry Como, and Metropolitan Opera diva Helen Traubel all recorded it. The song’s enduring legacy is tied to its use in Frank Capra’s iconic 1946 film It’s a Wonderful Life, but few know its tragic origins.
The song’s history begins with a dramatic love story fit for the silver screen, and it’s just as compelling as the one in It’s a Wonderful Life. It’s the late 19th century. The setting is a blissful home in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan shared by Carrie Jacobs-Bond and her loving husband Frank. Frank consistently encourages Carrie to write more music even though she is at that point mostly unknown in the American music scene. She writes a heartfelt and beautiful song called “I Love You Truly” that is almost certainly inspired by the life they share.
But, in the harsh winter of 1895, Frank falls on ice and dies an agonizing five days later. Mere minutes before the accident, Carrie remembers him saying, “We know love is the greatest thing in the world because we’re lovers.” She tells us in her autobiography, The Roads of Melody, “These words were burned into my heart to live forever.” That event plunged Jacobs-Bond and her son into poverty for six difficult years in Chicago.
Then, in 1901, Jacobs-Bond caught her big break. Metropolitan Opera star Jessie Bartlett Davis helped fund the publication of the collection that included “I Love You Truly,” and the song eventually sold over a million copies. Jacobs-Bond sang the song for Presidents Roosevelt, Harding, and Coolidge. It was the beginning of her path toward success and fame.
A particularly fine recording of “I Love You Truly” was made in 1944 by Dorothy Maynor, one of the great Black female opera singers of the twentieth century, the founder of the Harlem School for the Arts, and perhaps the first African American person to sing at a US president’s inauguration. If you’re a dedicated record collector, you may enjoy searching for a copy of that recording. It’s now very difficult to find.
Take a look through your music library or record collection, and you just might find a recording of the song. Aside from Bing Crosby, Perry Como, and Helen Traubel, many prominent musicians have recorded it. Pat Boone released a version, and avid classical collectors might even have recordings by Elsie Baker, Irene Pavloska, or Sophie Braslau.
The song was extremely popular for weddings throughout most of the 20th century as well, but now it’s probably most often heard in that beautiful moment in It’s A Wonderful Life. Just about an hour into the movie, the scene depicts Mary creating a honeymoon for her new husband, George, on their wedding day. Just after the newlyweds kiss, the record on the phonograph ends, but they don’t notice because their loyal friends Burt and Ernie begin to sing “I Love You Truly” outside the window. Jacobs-Bond died only eight days after the film’s release in 1946.
“I Love You Truly” isn’t a complex song, but that’s actually one of the things that enabled its rise to prominence in American music. When it was published in 1901, sheet music was still one of the best ways for composers to reach listeners. So, the music had to be accessible to amateur pianists and singers for it to reach the broadest audience.
Even if you’re not a skilled pianist, you can still enjoy playing “I Love You Truly” at home on your piano and singing along. It’s available for free from the International Music Score Library Project as part of Seven Songs as Unpretentious as the Wild Rose. You can also listen to one of the many recordings listed below to hear some performances of the song throughout its history. Americans have loved Carrie Jacobs-Bond’s “I Love You Truly” for over a hundred years. There are plenty of reasons to love the song for a hundred more.
Famous recordings of Carrie Jacobs-Bond’s “I Love You Truly:"
- Sophie Braslau (1917 and 1922)
- Irene Pavloska (1920)
- Al Bowlly (1934)
- Bing Crosby (1934 and 1945)
- Erskine Hawkins (1942)
- Dorothy Maynor (1944)
- Helen Traubel (1946)
- Jeanette MacDonald (1947)
- Perry Como (1948)
- Mantovani and His Orchestra (1952)
- The Ink Spots
- Pat Boone (2006)
- Jolie Goodnight (2013)
Watch a clip about Carrie Jacobs-Bond at 37:45 in this video by Wisconsin Hometown Stories from PBS Wisconsin:
This piece was based on prior work by Nicholas Booker for The Ohio State University Urban Arts Space.
