Mitchell Parish

Mitchell Parish, born Michael Hyman Pashelinsky on July 10, 1900, in Lithuania, was an American lyricist whose work spanned stage, screen, and Tin Pan Alley. His family arrived in the United States on February 3, 1901, aboard the SS Dresden, settling initially in Louisiana before relocating to New York City, where Parish grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and attended public schools. He went on to study at Columbia University and New York University, became a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and initially pursued a path toward law before abandoning it in favor of songwriting.

Parish began his professional career writing comedy lyrics for vaudeville acts and working as a song-plugger for music publisher Jack Mills, brother of Irving Mills, who hired him at $12 a week. His first hit, "Carolina Rolling Stone," was recorded by the comedy team Van and Schenck for Columbia Records in 1922. By the late 1920s he had established himself as a prominent Tin Pan Alley lyricist in New York City. His practice was to write lyrics to completed melodies, including songs that originated in other languages and adaptations of classical music, collaborating with composers such as Hoagy Carmichael, Duke Ellington, Peter De Rose, Leroy Anderson, Glenn Miller, Sammy Fain, and Benny Goodman.

Among his best-known lyrics are those for "Stardust," "Sweet Lorraine," "Deep Purple," "Stars Fell on Alabama," "Sophisticated Lady," "Moonlight Serenade," "Sleigh Ride," and "One Morning in May." He also provided English translations for "Volare" and "Blue Shirt Waltz," and wrote "Louisiana Fairy Tale," which served as the first theme song for the PBS production of This Old House. With Carmichael, he collaborated on additional standards including "Riverboat Shuffle." In 1949, Parish wrote lyrics to bandleader Al Goodman's tune "The Allen Stroll," transforming it into "Carousel of Love," which premiered on The Fred Allen Show on April 4, 1949, performed by the DeMarco Sisters with Al Goodman and his Orchestra. In 1950 he wrote lyrics to Leroy Anderson's "The Syncopated Clock," and in 1951 he wrote the English lyrics for the French song "Maître Pierre," retitled "The Windmill Song" and recorded by The Andrews Sisters with Gordon Jenkins and his Orchestra. In a 1987 interview, Parish claimed authorship of the lyrics to Duke Ellington's "Mood Indigo," though the credit was held by Irving Mills, a matter about which he remained, in his own characterization, somewhat rueful though no longer bitter.

Parish's Broadway credits extended across several decades. He served as featured lyricist for Continental Varieties in 1935 and Earl Carroll's Vanities of 1940, and appeared as a performer in Lew Leslie's Blackbirds of 1939. Later in his career he contributed lyrics to Bubbling Brown Sugar in 1976 and to Sophisticated Ladies in 1981, specifically for "Sophisticated Lady." The 1987 revue Stardust featured him as lyricist. His database credits also include It Happens on Ice.

In 1972, Parish was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame as one of its first inductees, and he later received the organization's Johnny Mercer Award. Fellow songwriters referred to him as the poet laureate of the profession. He appeared as a challenger on the television program To Tell the Truth on December 25, 1956. His grandnephew, Steve Parish, was a roadie for the Grateful Dead and described a meeting between Mitchell Parish and Jerry Garcia in his autobiography Home Before Daylight.

Parish died on March 31, 1993, in Manhattan at the age of 92 and was buried at Beth David Cemetery in Elmont, New York.