Favorite Old Songs

[Kitty]

That was so cute! I love novelty songs.

[donnie]

Here's another movie-based novelty from Annette: "I Got 'It' but It Don't Do Me no Good"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gWldO4jWv4

[Kitty]

That was fun!
Some of these songs are proof that today's mentality that the old days were more innocent is just plain incorrect. It was just done differently.
I never heard much of her music before this. I wonder where the "That's All" thing came from?

[Kitty]

Danny Kaye again! *Sigh* Let's Not Talk About Love is one of my very favorites, with the name dropping and perfectness of it. I'm including the lyrics link, because, well, it helps A LOT! If you know anything about Kaye, he specialized in tongue twisters and fast talking.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.musixm ... t-Love/amp

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ4eE9ihy8M

[donnie]

Wow, that's great! I'm glad you provided the lyrics.

That sounds so much like the Gilbert and Sullivan "patter" songs, especially Major-General Stanley's song in The Pirates of Penzance. I wonder if that was the inspiration for this? Kaye would have been a natural in a G&S production!

Click on the "Show Me" to get the lyrics. And no, I don't know what a lot of those words mean.
"Sat a gee" = sat on a horse
I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2OcbeGqbpU

[Kitty]

He would have totally loved doing that!
My favorite movie of his is The Inspector General, where he is a gypsy mistaken by corrupt officials as an inspector general. If you have not seen it, you must! It's on YouTube. It's an amazing showcase for his talent. Here are two of the songs from it.
Gypsy Drinking Song
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RuU9gtsjzww

And the Yakovs Elixir song. Danny's song starts around 4 minutes in, but the whole scene is good if you're interested. This is one of those movies I watched 6000 times and never got tired of.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m1yM2babqZs

[donnie]

That's wonderful. He was so gifted.

[donnie]

Since you liked the Major-General's song, I thought you might get a kick out of The Lord Chancellor's Nightmare Song from Iolanthe. This is being sung (as was the Major-General's) by John Reed, who was a much-loved singer with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Co. He did all the G&S comic baritone leads for many years. Text below. (You'll need it!)
Nightmare Song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZgDtWhNP6c

[Enter Lord Chancellor, very miserable.]

Love, unrequited, robs me of my rest:
Love, hopeless love, my ardent soul encumbers:
Love, nightmare-like, lies heavy on my chest,
And weaves itself into my midnight slumbers!
When you're lying awake with a dismal headache, and repose is taboo'd by anxiety,
I conceive you may use any language you choose to indulge in, without impropriety;
For your brain is on fire – the bedclothes conspire of usual slumber to plunder you:
First your counterpane goes, and uncovers your toes, and your sheet slips demurely from under you;

Then the blanketing tickles – you feel like mixed pickles – so terribly sharp is the pricking,
And you're hot, and you're cross, and you tumble and toss till there's nothing ‘twixt you and the ticking.
Then the bedclothes all creep to the ground in a heap, and you pick 'em all up in a tangle;
Next your pillow resigns and politely declines to remain at its usual angle!

Well, you get some repose in the form of a doze, with hot eye-balls and head ever aching.
But your slumbering teems with such horrible dreams that you'd very much better be waking;
For you dream you are crossing the Channel, and tossing about in a steamer from Harwich –
Which is something between a large bathing machine and a very small second-class carriage –

And you're giving a treat (penny ice and cold meat) to a party of friends and relations –
They're a ravenous horde – and they all came on board at Sloane Square and South Kensington Stations.
And bound on that journey you find your attorney (who started that morning from Devon);
He's a bit undersized, and you don't feel surprised when he tells you he's only eleven.

Well, you're driving like mad with this singular lad (by the by, the ship's now a four-wheeler),
And you're playing round games, and he calls you bad names when you tell him that "ties pay the dealer";
But this you can't stand, so you throw up your hand, and you find you're as cold as an icicle,
In your shirt and your socks (the black silk with gold clocks), crossing Salisbury Plain on a bicycle:

And he and the crew are on bicycles too – which they've somehow or other invested in –
And he's telling the tars all the particulars of a company he's interested in –
It's a scheme of devices, to get at low prices all goods from cough mixtures to cables
(Which tickled the sailors), by treating retailers as though they were all vegetables –

You get a good spadesman to plant a small tradesman (first take off his boots with a boot-tree),
And his legs will take root, and his fingers will shoot, and they'll blossom and bud like a fruit-tree –
From the greengrocer tree you get grapes and green pea, cauliflower, pineapple, and cranberries,
While the pastrycook plant cherry brandy will grant, apple puffs, and three corners, and Banburys –

The shares are a penny, and ever so many are taken by Rothschild and Baring,
And just as a few are allotted to you, you awake with a shudder despairing –

You're a regular wreck, with a crick in your neck, and no wonder you snore, for your head's on the floor,
and you've needles and pins from your soles to your shins, and your flesh is a-creep, for your left leg's asleep,
and you've cramp in your toes, and a fly on your nose, and some fluff in your lung, and a feverish tongue,
and a thirst that's intense, and a general sense that you haven't been sleeping in clover;

But the darkness has passed, and it's daylight at last, and the night has been long – ditto, ditto my song – and thank goodness they're both of them over!

[Lord Chancellor falls exhausted on a seat.]

[Kitty]

I love this song. I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say (1939) Jelly Roll Morton.
https://youtu.be/E3Axq14wE8U

[dachshundonstilts]

Oh, I like Annette too! Got this one on my phone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3ZnlZR7pIU

I have to say that her "That's all!" reminds me anachronistically of Hee Haw. But I've noticed that a number of artists made a point of having a little "signature" at the end of their records. With Rudy Vallee, it was a final hit on the vibraphone. Stan Kenton would often put a few low brass stabs at the end.


I've always liked this tune by Guy Mitchell. Very catchy.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk22CHRAoPU