“Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive” is a popular song which was published in 1944. The music was written by Harold Arlen and the lyrics by Johnny Mercer. The song was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 18th Academy Awards in 1945 after being used in the film Here Come the Waves.
About The Song
It is sung in the style of a sermon, and explains that accentuating the positive is key to happiness. In describing his inspiration for the lyric, Mercer told the Pop Chronicles radio documentary “[my] publicity agent … went to hear Father Divine and he had a sermon and his subject was ‘you got to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative.’ And I said ‘Wow, that’s a colorful phrase!'”
Mercer recorded the song, with The Pied Pipers and Paul Weston’s orchestra, on October 4, 1944, and it was released by Capitol Records as catalog number 180. The record first reached the Billboard magazine charts on January 4, 1945, and lasted 13 weeks on the chart, peaking at number 2. On the Harlem Hit Parade chart, it went to number four.[4] The song was number five on Billboard’s Annual High School Survey in 1945.
On March 25, 2015, it was announced that Mercer’s version would be inducted into the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry for the song’s “cultural, artistic and/or historical significance to American society and the nation’s audio legacy”.
Video
Lyric
🎵 Let’s sing along with the lyrics! 🎤
You’ve got to ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive
Eliminate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
Don’t mess with Mister In BetweenYou’ve got to spread joy up to the maximum
Bring gloom down to the minimum
Have faith or pandemonium
Liable to walk upon the scene(To illustrate his last remark)
(Jonah in the whale, Noah in the ark)
(What did they do)
(Just when everything looked so dark)Man, they said we better
Ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive
Eliminate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
Don’t mess with Mister In Between
No, do not mess with Mister In Between
Do you hear me, hmm(Oh, listen to me child’in and a-you will hear)
(About the eliminating of the negative)
(And the accent on the positive)And gather round me children if you willing
And sit tight while I start reviewing
The attitude of doing right(You gotta ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive)
(Eliminate the negative)
(Latch on to the affirmative)
(Don’t mess with Mister In Between)You got to spread joy (up to the maximum)
Bring gloom down to the minimum, (then)
Otherwise, (otherwise)
Pandemonium liable to walk upon the scene(To illustrate) Well illustrate
(My last remark) You got the floor
Jonah in the whale, Noah in the ark
(What did they say) What did they say
(Say, when everything looked so dark)Man, they said we better
Ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive
Eliminate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
Don’t mess with Mister In Between
No, don’t mess with Mister In Between