Irving Berlin's singular devotion to the art of weaving words and music together produced songs of extraordinary quality. During the course of his career, he wrote thousands of songs, sometimes at a rate of at least one a day. 899 of his songs were registered for copyright, but it is the quality of these songs that is remarkable. Over half of them became hits and 282 of them reached the top ten. He was responsible for musical films including White Christmas and Easter Parade and the musical Annie Get Your Gun. In this book, musical theatre historian Philip Furia has written a musical life of America's most beloved composer. With access to the Irving Berlin Archives, he has brought forth new information on how the songs were created and related this to the important incidents in the composer's life.