In 1938 composer Sammy Fain collaborated with longtime lyricist Irving Kahal on the musical Right This Way. It was not particularly successful, but the show's one hit number, "I'll Be Seeing You," would go on to become the most popular song the Fain/Kahal team ever produced. It inspired the 1944 film of the same title that starred Ginger Rogers and Joseph Cotton. Bing Crosby recorded the song that same year and that effort became the nation's bestselling record for four weeks and remained on the charts another 20 more. The melody to the song was one of the most famous in the 1940s and is still recognizable by a wide audience today, including some young listeners. It is sentimental but not saccharine and yearns with passion, as the text recounts a woman's (or man's) longings for her absent lover. The melody descends at the outset in its sweet melancholy, but in its passionate, hopeful yearnings, reaches upward in the next several phrases, failing so touchingly, however, to attain the emotional ecstasy it desperately desires. In most performances of "I'll Be Seeing You," the opening verse, beginning with Cathedral bells, is excised, so that the song opens with this striking Fain melody.

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