Listen to "Over There," "Hunting the Hun," "You Can't Beat Us" and other musical hits from the years of the First World War here. Hemingway and his soldier buddies would have known many of these tunes.
Hemingway called this African-American entertainer "the most sensational woman anyone ever saw." Baker emigrated to France around the same time as Hemingway. This documentary in several parts features her music and dance.
In "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," Hemingway's dying narrator quotes from Cole Porter's 1933 tune "It's Bad for Me." This is one piece of evidence that Hemingway was familiar with the songwriter, who was born a few years before Hemingway and died a few years after him. His iconic hits include "I Get a Kick Out of You" and "Don't Fence Me In."
Hemingway lived in Cuba off and on for twenty years. Music features prominently in the country's culture, which Hemingway found inspiring.
La Mome—the Little Sparrow—was singing on the streets of Paris while Hemingway was writing in its cafes. They rose to fame at the same time and both died, prematurely, in 1961. We imagine that Hemingway would have sympathized with the lyrics of Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien (No, I Regret Nothing).
The 1993 movie tanked at the box office, but the evocative score by Michael Convertino has its fans.
Hemingway's novel Islands in the Stream is published posthumously in 1970. In 1983, Kenny Rogers' and Dolly Parton's single of the same name tops the charts. Coincidence? You decide.