Nora Bayes sings "Make Believe" on Columbia A3392, recorded on February 11, 1921. <br /><br />Music is by Jack Shilkret (1896-1964). <br /><br />Lyrics is by Benny Davis (1895-1979). <br /><br />A book titled "The Paris Wife" is about Ernest Hemingway's first wife Haldley, and it refers to this song. The author, Paula McLain, writes in her book: "There's a song from that time by Nora Bayes called 'Make Believe,' which might have been the most lilting and persuasive treatise on self-delusion I'd ever heard. Nora Bayes was beautiful, and she sang with a trembling voice that told you she knew things about love. When she advised you to throw off all the old pain and worry and heartache and smile — well, you believed she'd done this herself. It wasn't a suggestion but a prescription. The song must have been a favorite of Kenley's, too. He played it three times the night I arrived in Chicago, and each time I felt it speaking directly to me: Make believe you are glad when you're sorry. Sunshine will follow the rain... What was happiness anyway? Could you fake it, as Nora Bayes insisted?" <br /><br />There are times when you feel sad and blue <br />Something's wrong, you don't know what to do <br />When you feel that way, stop and think awhile <br />Just make believe and smile <br /><br />Make believe you are glad when you're sorry <br />Sunshine will follow the rain <br />When things go wrong, it won't be long <br />Soon they'll be right again <br /><br />Tho' your love dreams have gone, make believe, don't let on <br />Smile tho' your heart may be broken <br />For when bad luck departs, you will find good luck starts <br />Don't grieve, just make believe <br /><br />When your dearest friends have turned away <br />And blue skies above have turned to gray <br />Don't worry for it may not all be true <br />Here's my advice to you... <br /><br />Reference books state that Bayes was born Dora or Leonora or Eleanor Goldberg. Nothing is known of her early life, and the name Goldberg was possibly a fabrication that Bayes herself fed to reporters. <br /><br />She was born around 1880. She never disclosed where she was born or raised, perhaps because of unhappy memories. <br /><br />She gives this information about her background in an article titled "Why People Enjoy Crying in a Theater," published in the April 1918 issue of The American Magazine: "I never would have been allowed to go on the stage if I had still been living with my parents, to whom the theater and all its works represented the lowest damnation and mortal sin. But I was married at seventeen and thus was free from parental discipline. I was first tried out at a vaudeville theater in Chicago. The Four Cohans were on the same bill...When I was a child of thirteen I had a phenomenal contralto voice." <br /><br />The contralto had her Broadway debut in 1901 in The Rogers Brothers in Washington. She would not be in another Broadway show for a few more years but enjoyed enough popularity by 1904 to be among a dozen famous vaudevillians listed on the sheet music cover for "Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis" ("Also Sung With Great Success by...Nora Bayes"). <br /><br />