Haydn Quartet’s “Take Me Out To The Ball Game”: Tin Pan Alley Joy and the Sound of America Finding Its Chorus
“Take Me Out To The Ball Game” already feels familiar before the first note lands, as if it exists somewhere deeper than memory, wired into instinct. When the Haydn Quartet recorded the song in 1908, it wasn’t yet the ritual centerpiece it would become, but the seeds were all there: the communal melody, the easy…