THE START OF SOMETHING BIG - Steve Allen TV Show - YANKEE DOODLE DANDY

[@DrLumpyDMus]

Steve Allen was a very busy entertainer. As a young musician in Hollywood, I worked for him on several occasions. I caution the presenter about simply copy and pasting the "quote" from Mr Allen about having composed 8500 songs. Over 30 years that's 283 songs per year. That's really not logistically possible for a human, especially when holding down a busy career as an author, TV host, actor, etc. There's no accountable list anywhere about anyone in history having composed that many songs. I would attribute the quote to being a quick, generalized, comedic, "pull a number out of nowhere" answer to an interviewer's question, the number either invented indeed by Mr Allen, or exaggerated by the telegraph of reporters who have rewritten the story over the last half century. Like someone saying "I've written a million songs". They really haven't written a million. Mr Allen really hasn't written 8500.

[@DickFisher]

Thanks for that, I'm sure you are right.