Jewish Stereo Types

Or to put it another way, I am chasing a deadline and don't have time to write a new blog post, but it is Valentine's Day and I already posted a very good Valentine song four years ago , so I'm going to cut-and-paste, with a few tweaks here and there (because it is impossible not to find a few things to tweak when you reread your own work). So here is my Special Repeat Post about "My Funny Valentine" by Rodgers and Hart, here sung by the great Ella Fitzgerald: Video posted by YouTube for the subject Ella Fitzgerald You'll note that I chose to use a version sung by a woman, even though the Frank Sinatra and Chet Baker covers are probably the most well-known. That's because the song was written for the Broadway musical Babes in Arms , in which it was sung by a girl about her new boyfriend, a young man named Valentine. The lyrics, it seems to me, make a lot more sense when you consider that they are describing a boy, and one whom the singer considers hop...

Here, have a happy for the new year: Video posted by A Great Big World That video is just reportedly just as unscripted as it looks, according to Chad King and Ian Axel (aka A Great Big World), in a Reddit AMA . They were at a friend's holiday party when Lief Parton (another friend) came up with the idea, so they just filmed it there and then, using the partygoers present. In their words, "[W]e just wanted to capture pure, unscripted joy," and who can't use some of that? In a 2014 Huffington Post interview , the two had this to say about the song: In 2008 we went to the most epic New Years party ever in the middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania. On our way back, we felt incredibly inspired by life. This song came from a place where making changes and resolutions in our lives seems to only happen once a year, and we feel like they should be and can be made every day. *** King's birth name is Chad Vaccarino ( he changed it in 2015 ), and I have no reason whats...

I bet you thought this was going to be about "Baby, It's Cold Outside," but no. Not tonight. Tonight we're spotlighting "Santa Baby," written by Philip Springer and Joan Javits, which was controversial enough when it came out in 1953 to be banned by some stations, because--*gasp!*--it was too sexy. (One wonders what those stations would have made of, oh, say, "WAP"...ah, well, autre temps and all that.) Here's a cover by Kelly Clarkson singing "Santa Baby," full dressed and doing nothing untoward to her mike: Video posted by The Kelly Clarkson Vault "Santa Baby" was another of the Christmas classics written to order --in this case, it was a record company wanting a Christmas number for Eartha Kitt, who surprised absolutely no one when she later titled her memoir Confessions of a Sex Kitten . Philip Springer, who had written a few hits by then, and Joan Javits, a Brill Building staff writer, came up with a list for S...

"The Christmas Waltz," by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne, sung by She and Him (Zooey Deschanel & M. Ward): Video posted by SheandHimOfficial According to Sammy Cahn, it was written during a hot California summer, because Frank Sinatra called and asked for a Christmas song . Wanting to at least not compete directly with Irving Berlin's "White Christmas," they wrote a waltz. And since Sinatra used it as the B side to "White Christmas," it was just as well. As I have mentioned before (and as is strongly suggested by their names), both Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne (pronounced "Julie Stine") were Jewish, with Styne writing mostly for Broadway, Cahn writing mostly for movies, and both writing SO MANY SONGS, both with each other and with others. Lyricist Sammy Cahn was born on the Lower East Side of New York to Jewish immigrants. He started writing lyrics at about age 16 , which (spoiler alert!) ended well: He won four Oscars for Best Song ...

Here's the thing: In a proper book musical, all the songs have to be part of the story. And yet, if the song is TOO much part of the story, it stays in the show, rather than becoming a classic. And if the New Deal is in your lyrics, let alone the title, your song is really quite solidly embedded your play. So, not a holiday staple. But it is also stuck in my head, thanks to one of those live-on-TV productions 10 days ago, so..."A New Deal for Christmas" from Annie , by Strouse and Charnin: Video posted by BroadwayTVArchive As I've mentioned before, both Charles Strouse (music) and Martin Charnin (lyrics) are Jewish. "Tomorrow" notwithstanding, the show won seven Tony Awards, two Broadway revivals (so far), three movies (not counting sequels), and the aforementioned live-on-TV production, starring Harry Connick, Jr. as Daddy Warbucks, so it's doing pretty well without spawning a Christmas standard. (But I confess to being a bit sorry that FDR'...

Today I have already received, by actual count, 347 Black Friday Sales emails. That does not count the Pre-Black Friday Sales emails I have received during the past week. That is just this morning. So there was really only one choice for opening up my season of Holiday-Songs-Written-by-Jews: "The Christmas Can-Can," lyrics and arrangement by Walter Chase, music (mostly) by Jacques Offenbach, sung by Straight No Chaser: Video posted by Today in Nashville *** In the past, I have noted that while there was nothing definitive available about the Jewishness or lack thereof of the arranger, Walter Chase. Well, I now have a definitive answer: No. He is not. As he says: In college, the ‘dreidel guy’ was a guy named Mike Itkoff, a nice Jewish boy from Columbus, OH. He was hysterical doing it. When the group re-formed back in 2008, Mike did the group for a year and then he left, and left a void of the ‘dreidel guy’ and that was passed down to me. I’ve been doing it ever sinc...

Well, another holiday, another song or two. I was mulling over a few options, and then I had a little conversation with my mother about how on July 4th, people across the US used to gather in public spaces to hear the Declaration of Independence read aloud, and how unfortunate it is that that isn't common any more. So here is a song about the Declaration of Independence: Video posted by Illinois Policy The Schoolhouse Rock! song Fireworks was one of those written by Lynn Ahrens, a highly successful ( and Jewish! ) Broadway lyricist and libretticist. Together with her collaborator Stephen Flaherty she has written the songs for Ragtime , Seussical , Anastasia , Once on this Island and others, picking up an Emmy, 3 Grammy nominations, and a Tony (plus two more Tony nominations) along the way. And of the 37 Schoolhouse Rock! songs, Ms. Ahrens wrote 15 , including her first, and probably best known, "Preamble," which I include because why not? Video posted by T...

Happy Easter! And for the most Easter-appropriate song I can think of, I refer you to my earlier post on "Easter Parade" and other related Irving Berlin songs . (Please do click through ; the song was already 85 years old when I posted it originally, it surely hasn't aged appreciably in an extra year or two.) (No, I still cannot write a sonnet. Don't judge me!) * * * * * Have you seen the dancing healthcare workers ? CHECK THEM OUT! You'll have to click through to the CNN article for the TikTok vids--and you should!--since I am insufficiently hip for that app. However, I know how to embed from Instagram, so...: View this post on Instagram Seeing the Doctors and Nurses of @Tjuh_pool do the #LevelUp Dance brings me so much joy. Grateful for each and every one of you! You all are on a whole nother level for how you’re working so hard and sacrificing so much to take care of everyone! LevelUp Champs. #WereInThisTogether 💪🏽❤️ A post shared by Ciara (@ciara...

Oh, look, I'm back again! Today I bring you an obvious choice for the birthday of the United States of America: Video posted by The Ed Sullivan Show "God Bless America" by Irving Berlin, sung by the man himself with the backing of the Girl and Boy Scouts of America ( to whom, as it happens, all profits from the song have gone since 1940, via the God Bless America Fund ). Now, I can just hear you gathering your breath to point out all the song's flaws--jingoistic, simplistic, schmaltzy, sappy, sickly sweet, etc., etc. ... Whatever. As it happens, Irving Berlin himself did not think it was a very good song, at least not at first. He wrote it during WWI for the army-produced show "Yip, Yip, Yaphank," but rather than use it he decided it was, as he put it, “just a little sticky,” and put it away. He only fished it out of his trunk when Kate Smith approached him for a song to sing on Armistice Day 1938, rewriting it a bit before handing it over. And here...

Oh, dear. I'm more than a little behind with the Christmas songs this year, I'm afraid. Well, you can always take a look at last year's selections when I don't post (starting from here and going on through), right? It's the internet, everything is here forever! But I do have something new for you today--"new" as in "a song I haven't posted about before," that is. Here's what Billy Joel called "the only Christmas song I ever wrote"--"She's Right On Time": Video posted by Gabriel Braine (Official video over here .) It's one of Joel's more obscure songs, off his 1982 album The Nylon Curtain, but in 2017 he listed it as one of his Top 5 songs on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert . *** As I wrote in my Memorial Day post , Billy Joel is Jewish . His mother was born in Brooklyn to Jewish immigrants from England, and his father was a German Jew that came to the US through Cuba, because of US quotas restr...

This melody was very popular when I was in high school, mumblety-mumble years ago, because you could dance to it. (If you did not attend a Jewish girls' school in your youth and don't know which dance, try the bunny hop. Most of the Jewish dance songs from my youth worked with the bunny hop.) "Al Hanisim," melody by Dov Frimer, sung by Izhar Cohen, lyrics from the 8th or 9th Century --the Gaonic period: Video posted by sha1om As I said last year , the lyrics are the introductory phrases to paragraphs inserted in the daily prayers on the Rabbinic holidays of Chanukah and Purim: And (we thank You) for the miracles, and for the salvation, and for the mighty deeds, and for the victories, and for the battles which You performed for our forefathers in those days, at this time. So, Happy Chanukah! Light a candle, have a latke... Video posted by MaccabeatsVideos ; "Latke Recipe." The song on which this parody is based, "Shut Up and Dance," was wri...

We've had this song before , but how could I resist? I mean, Black Friday was more than a week ago and my inbox is still overflowing with "BUY THIS HERE NOW!!!" emails, so... Here's "The Christmas Can-Can (Animated Version)," lyrics and arrangement by Walter Chase, music (mostly) by Jacques Offenbach, sung by Straight No Chaser: Video posted by Straight No Chaser *** Still nothing definitive about Walter Chase (although, as I said last year , it seems more likely than not that he is Jewish. As for the melody, I know that ( the Jewish ) Offenbach titled it "Infernal Galop" in his first full-length operetta, Orpheus in the Underworld , but what I see when I hear that music is neither Video posted by medici.tv (which makes me feel like I really must go see the full thing) nor Video posted by Petittwo , from the 1952 film Moulin Rouge but Video posted by ShopRiteStores What can I say? We are all products of our childhoods. Although j...

Okay, so this isn't really a Thanksgiving song; technically it's a Christmas song. But hey, any song with the lyrics "Everybody gather round the table / Dig in, dinner's being served / Eat all the turkey you are able" is going to feel awfully Thanksgiving-y, right? So here's "Turkey Lurkey Time" by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, as sung by Margo Sappington, Baayork Lee, and Donna McKechnie in Promises, Promises : Video posted by Broadway Classics You will note that the song is awful. I mean, it's really awful--but in the context of the show, it was supposed to have been written by three secretaries as entertainment for the office Christmas party, so. (It also explains why the dance and orchestration say "1960s" so relentlessly.) But at least it gives us a turkey song! *** As I mentioned in my tribute to Neil Simon , the songwriters for Promises, Promises were both Jewish, even if Burt Bacharach, as a child at least, "didn...

When I went Googling searching my memory for songs appropriate to Veterans Day, I found I had pretty much the same problem I had looking for appropriate Memorial Day songs--lots and lots of lists of patriotic songs, but not so many that highlighted servicemen and -women. So I thought I would present serviceman Irving Berlin's complaint about army life during WWI, "Oh, How I Hate To Get Up in the Morning": Video posted by MuricaForever Since I've already written about Irving Berlin in posts about "White Christmas" and "Easter Parade," I thought I'd just bring you Irving Berlin himself, singing his own song. And now here's what he had to say about writing it: There were a lot of things about army life I didn't like, and the thing I didn't like most of all was reveille. I hated it. I hated it so much I used to lie awake nights thinking about how much I hated it. [But] I wanted to be a good soldier. Every morning when the bugle...

Labor Day became a federal holiday in 1894, but the first of my two songs for today was written in 1930 , for the Depression-era 1932 revival of the musical revue Americana , and it's a stark reminder of the need for organized labor.   "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime," lyrics by Yip Harburg, music by Jay Gorney, sung by Bing Crosby: Video posted by warholsoup100 In its review of the revival, The New York Times particularly called out the song for praise: [Y]ou are likely to feel that Mr. Gorney has expressed the spirit of these times with more heart-breaking anguish than any of the prose bards of the day. If Mr. Hoover had asked for a song instead of a poem the other day, "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" would have been what the President ordered. Interestingly, as Rob Kapilow points out in an interview on NPR the song isn't someone asking for a handout--it's someone talking back to the system, someone saying, "I worked hard, I helped bui...

A whole musical! Because what could be more appropriate for a holiday that celebrates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence than a show about the adoption of the Declaration of Independence? I give you 1776 , by Sherman Edwards (music, lyrics, and original book ) and Peter Stone (book). Well, okay, I'm not posting the whole musical here. I'm just going to bring a few excerpts: Opening ("Sit Down, John"), sung by Brent Spiner (as John Adams) and company: Video posted by aurora spiderwpman That's one way to get all the exposition out of the way. (As it happens, I was fortunate enough to see this 1998 revival, and loved it.)   I'm including this non-song bit because hey, some things never change! Video posted by Nicholas S. Castellano (In real life, that is something John Adams wrote in his diary , but yep, it was about New Yorkers.)   "But Mr. Adams", sung in 2009 at the Redlands Bowl: Video posted by Jason livesay John Ada...

I had a good dramatic, emotional, Fathers-Day-appropriate song all ready to go for today. But my father passed away a little less than a year ago, so I decided to look at a thing he always enjoyed instead. Rather than a single song, therefore, I thought we'd take a look at a movie musical that, no matter what you might believe from the title, is really about a father: Mary Poppins . How we know that Mary Poppins is really about the father and not about Mary Poppins is that the father is the only character that changes over the course of the film. Mary Poppins herself doesn't change--Mary Poppins NEVER changes. Jane and Michael don't change--we first see them being brought back home after running away, and near the end of the film we see them being brought back after running away. Mrs. Banks doesn't change--she is concerned about her children but distracted by her suffragette activities all the way through. But Mr. Banks changes--and he changes as a father . What coul...

Do you know what you get when you google "Memorial Day songs"? You get lists of patriotic songs, and you get lists of anti-war songs. And I can't see how either of those types of songs are really appropriate for a day that is meant for remembering those that died while serving in the U.S.'s armed forces. So instead, I settled on Billy Joel's "Goodnight Saigon": Video posted by Billy Joel And while no one sings it like Billy Joel himself, I'm also adding this version by Garth Brooks from the 2013 Kennedy Center Honors, even though it's abridged. If you watch until just past a minute in, you'll see why: Video posted by Jason Eric Mumaw Perhaps this song is a little better suited to Veterans' Day, but I think it serves the memory of our fallen soldiers well. The song was criticized for refusing to take sides on the Vietnam War, but I think that that is its strength--and why it's so appropriate for today. *** Yes, Billy Joel i...

Here's the thing: I couldn't find any good Mothers' Day songs at all. So I tried to find a song about or addressed to the singer's mother that would be appropriate for Mothers' Day and which would also fit my theme, and it turned out to be a little bit of a search. (We'll just leave out the jokes about Jewish mothers, okay? After all, it IS Mothers' Day.) Along the way, I found songs sung by a mama, such as "When You're Good to Mama" from Kander and Ebb's Chicago , and most of the songs from Styne and Sondheim's Gypsy , but much as I'd like to get to Sondheim and Kander and Ebb, these do not seem like quite the right kind of mother songs for Mothers' Day. I also found songs about mama's advice, such as Arlen and Mercer's "Blues in the Night" which were better, but, much as I'd like to get to Arlen, didn't seem to strike quite the right note for Mothers' Day either. Then there's this lu...

Well, actually, no, I cannot write a sonnet. However, that's the lyric in Irving Berlin's "Easter Parade." Like "White Christmas," it was a song in 1942's Holiday Inn , sung by Bing Crosby to Marjorie Reynolds: Video posted by soccerkrazy2 although it originally appeared in Berlin's 1933 revue "As Thousands Cheer." And, like "White Christmas," it had a movie constructed around it, 1948's Easter Parade , in which Judy Garland sings it to Fred Astaire: Video posted by Gregory Maldonado I don't think it's quite so successful that way, but it's a fun film with tons of great songs. (Don't miss "We're a Couple of Swells": Video posted by gem tracker Did Fred Astaire even know how not to be elegant?) The film is perhaps most famous for a number that was deleted-- Judy Garland performing "Mr. Monotony" in the outfit she later famously wore in Summer Stock's "Get Happy"...