Playlist For December 4, 2022: Ira, You're S'Wonderful!

I am presently wearing a blanket of gravy and mashed potatoes. Seriously. My Thanksgiving turned into 5 Thanksgivings, if you count the leftover feasts. So even tho I didn't actually cook the banquet this year, I experienced it 10 fold. (My refrigerator is still experiencing it. Oy.)

 

 But now we have that limbo between the turkey and the eggnog. And I adamantly insist on there being a limbo, a pause between one holiday and the next! Growing up, we didn't get a tree 30 minutes after the parade was over, okay? We waited until maybe 3 days before Christmas. And THEN the folderol could begin. The blankets of tinsel (the aluminum kind, the heavy, wrinkly, cat-damaging tinsel), the nativity with the chipped Joseph, the stollen, the fruit cake...and there you go. Gifts ordered from that huge Sears (or Montgomery Ward) catalogue (that doll, Mom! That's the one!), and trips to the local jeweler for a Santa broach or tie tack for the 'rents. Ahhhh, fond memories.

 

I would pour over these pages and circle everything!

 

Not my parents, and that tree is way too fancy for us.

But the spirit (and the Philco) are on the nose!

BUT inn-keeping (where there is NO room, Mary) with that separation, that limbo, what do you play? And thanks to Ira Gershwin, we can play him! Ira (born Israel Gershovitz back in 1896) has his birthday on December 6th, so we can spend 2 S'Wonderful hours giving him a S'Wonderful salute. He was raised just 5 short blocks from where I used to live in the East Village, which was at that point in time smack dab in the middle of the Yiddish Theatre District. He was a reader. He was a writer. And together with younger brother George on the ivories, he collaborated on 12 musicals and 4 movie scores. And then later teamed up with Kern, Arlen, Weil...all the biggies of the day.

 

Ira! and below with brother George.

 

 So Ira this week. And after? Okay, okay...Broadway Christmas, Hollywood Christmas. Meanwhile, Who Cares and Shall We Dance? Yes, we do and we shall. :)

 

S'Wonderful (Georges Guetary, Gene Kelly, An American In Paris)

I Got Rhythm (Ethel Merman, Girl Crazy)

But Not For Me (Bobby Short, Bobby Short Is K-RA-ZY For Gershwin)

Stairway To Paradise (Georges Guetary, An American In Paris)

The Man That Got Away (Judy Garland, A Star Is Born)

The Man I Love (Liza Minnelli, New York, New York)

I've Got A Crush On You (Frank Sinatra)

Lonely Feet (Blossom Dearie, Alfred Drake)

Alone Together (Judy Garland, Judy At Carnegie Hall)

By Myself (Renee Zellweger, Judy)

Who Cares? (Ensemble, Of Thee I Sing)

Who Cares? (Bea Arthur, Just Between Friends)

Who Cares? (Judy Garland, Judy At Carnegie Hall) 

Nice Work If You Can Get It (The Andrews Sisters)

Love Is Here To Stay (Bobby Short, Bobby Short Is K-RA-ZY For Gershwin)

Let's Call The Whole Thing Off (Matthew Broderick, Kelli O'Hara, Nice Work If You Can Get It )

Long Ago And Far Away (Ann Hampton-Callaway, Jazz Goes To The Movies) 

Bidin' My Time (Ensemble, Crazy For You) 

Padum Padum (Edith Piaf)

For Me, Formidable (Charles Aznavour)

Laisse Tomber Les Filles (France Gall)

My Ship (Gertrude Lawrence, Lady In The Dark)

They All Laughed (Fred Astaire, Shall We Dance)

Clap Yo Hands (Kay Thompson, Fred Astaire, Funny Face)

Meadowlark (Patti LuPone, Don't Monkey With Broadway)

Back On Top (Patti LuPone, War Paint)

Sleepy Man (Patti LuPone, Don't Monkey With Broadway)

Shall We Dance? (Fred Astaire, Shall We Dance?)

Maybe (Bobby Short, Bobby Short Is K-RA-ZY For Gershwin)

Slap That Bass (Harry Groener, Crazy For You)

They Can't Take That Away From Me (Harry Groener, Jodi Benson, Crazy For You)

They Can't Take That Away From Me (Robert Fairchild, Brandon Uranowitz, Max Von Essen, An American In Paris)

They Can't Take That Away From Me (Peggy Lee, Black Coffee)

 S'Wonderful (Fred Astaire, Audrey Hepburn, Funny Face)

Playlist for Nov. 27, 2022: Pass the Tofurkey!

 As I type this, Rochester and its neighbors have dodged a huge precipitation bullet and "let it snow" all points west, and slightly south (meaning Orchard Park and Cheeeeeektowaga and Buffalo); we didn't even have to LOOK at our shovels. I didn't crack open the rock salt either. I did get my boot tray out, found the boots that go on it, as well as my Santa PJs from Walmart (fashion abounds here in The Cobblestone). Because no doubt the next storm will be all ours, so I am now ready, if not willing.

The theme for this coming Thanksgiving Edition has absolutely nothing to do with that holiday. There just aren't enough Thanksgiving "carols" on Broadway. Or anthems. Or pilgrim love ballads (Grim is in THE NAME)(would Plain And Simple count?). So we're going to just brush by this holiday, spit spot, and riff on another theme entirely: Anything. As in I can make a theme out of Anything. And I have. Plus Something. And Someone and Anyone. Yup, I'm definitely scrounging from the bottom of the Broadway Barrel this time, for a theme that is, NOT the quality. That's first rate, of course. :)

 

So there will be none of this (above)...back when balloons weren't part of a movie franchise or Disney or Marvel, et.al. 

I think that's just a large bug. Or a bug/dragon.

But remember these folks? Betty! Lorne!

And Shirley! On a snow castle.

 

On the agenda: "Anyone Can Whistle" and "Anything Goes", but "Someone Keeps Sending Me Flowers", C.O.D.? (Does anyone under the age of 60 even remember what that means?). "I'd Do Anything", I'd even "Do Something", if "You Do Something To Me".  Although "I Never Do Anything Twice"! (Feel free to read anything at all into these lyrics.)

 

 

Dody Goodman is the one "Someone Is Sending [Me] Flowers" to...

and I just felt like singing her praises with a couple of photos.

She was born October 28, 1914, and lived to be 93!

Below, her delightful cameo in Grease. (Grease is the word, btw.)

Next week, Ira Gershwin (they say it's your birthday!). The following week, an early Christmas Special. So I'll stop with the wacky weekly themes for awhile. But see how easily Broadway conforms to...well, practically Anything? Something's Coming, I don't know what it is, but it is "Something Good"!

See you post-turkey/tofurkey/tofutti. And skoal! 

As you can see above, I'll be cooking with friends.

 

 

Anything Goes (Sutton Foster, Anything Goes)

Something's Coming (Larry Kert, West Side Story)

You Do Something To Me (Howard McGillin, Susan Powell, Fifty Million Frenchman)

Something To Dance About (Tyne Daly, Call Me Madam)

Something Sort Of Grandish (Ella Logan, David Wayne, Finian's Rainbow)

Something Very Strange (Elaine Stritch, Sail Away)

Something Good (Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, The Sound Of Music

There Must Be Something Better Than Love (Pearl Bailey, Arms And The Girl)

There's Gotta Be Something Better Than This (Gwen Verdon, Helen Gallagher, Thelma Oliver, Sweet Charity)

Do Something (David Josefsberg, Rob McClure, Honeymoon In Vegas

Something Different (Katrina Lenk, Tony Shaloub, The Band's Visit)

Something From A Dream (Hunter Foster, The Bridges Of Madison County)

Something Rotten (Brian d'Arcy James, Company, Something Rotten)

I Can't Give You Anything But Love (Judy Garland)

Anything You Can Do (Betty Hutton, Howard Keel, Annie Get Your Gun

I'd Do Anything (Georgia Brown, Davy Jones, Oliver!)

Doesn't That Mean Anything To You? (Andrea Marcovicci, If I Were A Bell)

I Never Do Anything Twice (Millicent Martin, Side By Side By Sondheim)

Anything Can Happen In New York (Ray McDonald, Richard Quine, Mickey Rooney, Babes On Broadway)

Love Is Good For Anything That Ails You (Ida McCune)

Don't Be Anything Less Than Everything You Can Be (Deborah Graham, Vicki Lewis, Terry Kerwin, Stephen Fenning, Snoopy!!!)

Anyone Can Whistle (Stephen Sondheim, Sondheim Sings, Vol. 1)

Anyone Can Whistle (Tom Wopat, Leslie Kritzer, Barbara Cook, Sondheim On Sondheim)

Anyone Can Whistle (Lee Remick, Anyone Can Whistle

I'm A Brass Band (Gwen Verdon, Sweet Charity)

Someone Is Sending Me Flowers (Dody Goodman, Parade)

Please Send Me Someone (Fred Applegate, Mel Brook's Young Frankenstein)

Someone To Watch Over Me (Jodi Benson, Crazy For You)

Goodnight My Someone (Barbara Cook, The Music Man)

Someone To Fall Back On (Jason Robert Brown, Wearing Someone Else's Clothes)

Playlist For November 20, 2022: Novembrrrrr/Remembrrrrr

So the dial turns and suddenly it's Dark and Dank: An Edgar Allan weather forecast. Did summer actually happen? I remember slightly sweating around July 18th (Philly, 110 degrees in the shade) and broiling on a beach somewhere in Jersey...but then POOF. I drove home from the radio station last night IN HAIL. What the...@#&*()&$)@

 

Like this, but darker and danker.

This guy creates the November weather reports around here.

Kudos to Andre Carrilho (and The New Yorker) for this fantastic caricature.

 

Now I have to search for my ear muffs and that boot tray. Every spring I put all these cold weather accessories away, like REALLY away, thinking winter will never show up again? Nah, it's never gonna snow again! And every November, it's a treasure hunt.

But if we look at this with that Pollyanna, "glass half full" positivity, that just prompts a Novembrrrrr edition, with Autumn Leaves and Raining In My Heart (and on my patio furniture)(yes, it's still out there shivering) kind of songs. It's also good for Remembrrrring and Nostalgia and Melancholia (which used to be a thing, I think, that you could expire from? Why am I picturing a chaise lounge/fainting couch to have Melancholia on?). I mean, I just picked up my first 3 gallons of eggnog (dairy-free, lite, filled with delicious if not at all healthy ingredients), and plan to warm it/sip it/think on it, about holidays with large price tags in exotic places (Philly? Jersey? Are those exotic NOW?).

 

So put on those fleecy Walmart duds (or smoking jacket, my personal choice), ready the tissue box (some of these songs have that kind of power!), and enjoy...my new favorite: Too Many Memories, a Betty Buckley gem. That's on the playlist, along with Yves and Lotte and Michael and Charmian. Tune in and we can have Melancholia together. (No vax for that. Yet.) :)

I Remember (Charmian Carr, Evening Primrose)

I Remember It Well (Alfred Drake, Maria Karnilova, Gigi)

I Remember That (Clark Thorell, Andrea Burns, Saturday Night)

Moments To Remember (Guy Stroman, Stan Chandler, Jason Graae, David Engel, Forever Plaid)

Les Feuilles Mortes (Yves Montand, Les Portes De La Nuit)

Autumn Leaves (Leslie Odom, Jr.)

Another Autumn (Tony Bavaar, Paint Your Wagon)

Let It Snow! (Plaid Tidings, Holiday In Plaid)

Raining In My Heart (Bernadette Peters, Dames At Sea)

Raining (Margo Seibert, Rocky The Musical)

Snow (Jeffry Denman, Stephen Bogardus, White Christmas)

Look To The Rainbow (Ella Logan, Finian's Rainbow)

Mama, A Rainbow (Daniel Fortus, Minnie's Boys)

Sing A Rainbow (Peggy Lee, Pete Kelly's Blues)

Feeling I'm Falling (Bobby Short, Bobby Short Is K-RA-ZY For Gershwin)

Falling In Love With Love (Portia Nelson, The Boys From Syracuse)

September Song (Lotte Lenya, Knickerbocker Holiday)

Falling Out Of Love Can Be Fun (Mary McCarty, Miss Liberty)

I've Got A Feeling I'm Falling (Nell Carter, Ain't Misbehavin')

When I Fall In Love/My Foolish Heart (Michael Feinstein, Romance On Film, Romance On Broadway)

Remember? (Beth Fowler, Barbara Lang, Benjamin Rayson, Ensemble, A Little Night Music)

Thanks For The Memory (Bob Hope, Shirley Ross, The Big Broadcast Of 1938)

Too Many Memories (Betty Buckley, Story Songs)

Fallin' (Robert Klein, They're Playing Our Song)

Fallen Angel (John Lloyd Young, Jersey Boys)

I'll Never Fall In Love Again (Jill O'Hara, Jerry Orbach, Promises, Promises)

Falling Into You (Stephen Pasquale, Kelli O'Hara, The Bridges Of Madison County)

Falling Slowly (Steve Kazee, Once)

Try To Remember (Jerry Orbach, The Fantasticks)

I Don't Remember You (Robert Goulet, The Happy Time)

Memory (Betty Buckley, Cats)

 

Playlist For November 13, 2022: Upson Downs

Well, I had a chance to cycle this past week and that's probably the reason/excuse for this Sunday's theme. All that oxygen forcing itself up my nose and into my brain. Seriously, I get my most fantastical (that's a euphemistic way of describing WACKY) ideas while biking. Case in point:

1.) Why can't I bike around Lake Superior, SOLO, with a tent (having camped all of 2 times in my 60 plus years), for 1 month?!? Surely Shirley! What's so hard about that? I'm a monster!

With a perimeter of over 1,300 miles,

towns with names like "Thunder Bay" 

and no poshy B&Bs in the northern 1/3?? 

Oh sure, dream on!

 

2.) Why can't I sell my cobblestone and move to the Marais district of Paris? Like why didn't I do that yesterday? I mean it!

3.) What kind of pizza should I order tonight..."Meat Lovers"? Crispy? Deep Dish? What about a Snickers side salad? (Yes, that's a real thing.)

 

I don't think you have any right to call this a salad.

 

4.) Let's start a book club/play reading group/writers' group/taxidermist learning circle/anarchist commune? Who wouldn't want to do all of that?

and 5.) NEW THEME: Upside Down. Or Downside Up. Depending on your point of view and predilection for vertigo. 

 

That last one is actually doable. Lots of B-way songs re UP and DOWN. Some have both! There are also INSIDES and OUTSIDES, SIDEWAYS even, but we only have 2 hours. Maybe after another bike ride, I'll attempt THOSE adverbs. But for now, Everything's Coming Up, Sitting Down, Up A Lazy, Easing On Down, Brushing Up, et. al.

Ease on down...

Brush up...

                                                Ready for her close UP...
 

And she ain't DOWN (yet)...

So join me on the 13th. Hopefully by then, November will be acting more like its true self, no more oxygenating bike rides and their wacky consequences. Unless all this Broadway gets me dancing (and hyperventilating). :)

 

I Ain't Down Yet (Tammy Grimes, The Unsinkable Molly Brown)

Sit Down, You're Rocking The Boat (Walter Bobbie, Ensemble, Guys And Dolls)

Sit Down, John (William Daniels, Ensemble, 1776)

It's Delightful Down In Chili (Carol Channing, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes)

Ribbons Down My Back (Eileen Brennan, Hello, Dolly!)

Has I Let You Down? (Pearl Bailey, House Of Flowers)

Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out (Leslie Odom, Jr.)

Down In the Meadow (Marilyn Monroe, The River Of No Return)

Ease On Down The Road (Stephanie Mills, Ensemble, The Wiz)

When The Chips Are Down (Chris Sullivan, Nabiya Be, Ensemble, Hadestown)

Get Down (Brittany Mack, Six)

My Defenses Are Down (Tom Wopat, Annie Get Your Gun)

Down Among The Sheltering Palms (Ensemble, Some Like It Hot)

Deep Down Inside (Sid Caesar, Virginia Martin, Little Me)

Uptown, Downtown (Craig Lucas, Marry Me A Little)

When The Sun Goes Down (Mandy Gonzalez, Christopher Jackson, In The Heights)

Down With Love (Audra McDonald)

Everything's Coming Up Roses (Ethel Merman, Gypsy)

Hang Up (Mae Barnes, By The Beautiful Sea)

Up A Lazy River (Nick Cordero, Bullets Over Broadway)

Call Me Up Some Rainy Afternoon (Judy Garland, Bing Crosby)

Button Up Your Overcoat (Helen Kane)

I Won't Grow Up (Mary Martin, Peter Pan)

Pick Yourself Up (Fred Astaire, Swing Time)

Brush Up Your Shakespeare (James Whitmore, Keenan Wynn, Kiss Me, Kate)

Roll Yer Socks Up (Ensemble, New Girl In Town)

I'd Rather Wake Up By Myself (Shirley Booth, By The Beautiful Sea)

You're A Builder Upper (Jessica Molaskey, Make Believe)

Things Are Looking Up (Harry Groener, Crazy For You)

Waiting For The Girls Upstairs (Gene Nelson, John McMartin, Ensemble, Follies)

Upstairs (Jerry Orbach, Promises, Promises)

Nothin' Up (Ahna O'Reilly, The Robber Bridegroom)

A Little Friendly Advice (Moya Angela, Margo Seibert, In Transit)