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Originally published in 1909, Heart Songs was the first large scale, and still most expansive, attempt to record America's popular song taste. For this reason, as musicologist and folklorist W. K. McNeil explains in his Introduction, it is a treasure trove for anyone interested in America's musical history. Clearfield Company is honored, therefore, to add it to its collection of "Folklore Classics."

Heart Songs was the brainchild of Joe Mitchell Chapple, a successful journalist and author, who, as publisher of the National Magazine (formerly The Bostonian), undertook to compile a book of the favorite songs of the American people of his day. Using his magazine to garner song nominations--and to build up subscriptions--Chapple left the selection of songs to a committee consisting, in part, of himself, George W. Chadwick, and Victor Herbert. Over a four-year period, Chapple and his colleagues looked at submissions from as many as 20,000 people. They eventually chose 404 songs for their anthology, publishing them complete with words and music and classifying them under one or more of the following song categories: Patriotic/War Songs, Sea Songs, Lullabies/Children's Songs, Songs from Dance Music, Negro Melodies/Minstrel Songs, Sacred Songs/Hymns, Love Songs, Songs of the Great Masters, Concerts/Solos/Quartets, and College/Fraternal Songs.

Heart Songs' great value centers around two attributes. For one, it contains the words and lyrics to a large number of songs, many of which are difficult to find nowadays. Equally important, the volume tells us much about the musical taste of the American people at the turn of this century. For example, as Mr. McNeil states, the relatively high percentage of songs by Mozart, Schubert, Haydn, and other classical composers "suggest that the rigid distinction between classical and popular music that exists today was less firmly entrenched in the early years of the twentieth century." Similarly, it is, perhaps, noteworthy to learn that Americans' tastes extended across the ocean to the British and Irish composers Clairbel, Bayly, Henry Russell and Thomas Moore. On the other hand, it is not surprising to learn that the vast majority of the songs in the collection were composed before 1880 and fully 25% were written during the Civil War or were associated with the Civil War theme or era composers George Root and Stephen Foster. This preference for old standards, however, did not prevent such new tunes as Victor Herbert's "Toyland" (1903) and "Because You're You" (1906) from becoming overnight favorites.

No matter what conclusions one might draw from its contents, Heart Songs is a lasting tribute to the musical culture of turn-of-the-century America and to the foresight of publisher and compiler Joe Mitchell Chapple.