Jewish Stereo Types

Neil Simon died this past Sunday (Aug. 26, 2018) , and his humor ran through the lives of so many of us. I'm too young to have seen Your Show of Shows , but I saw a few of his many successful plays and several of the over twenty movies for which he wrote screenplays (for some reason I particularly recall Murder by Death ). Although he never wrote any song lyrics that I know of, he did write the books for a number of musicals (and was script doctor to quite a few more), so here are some songs from some of those. RIP, Mr. Simon, you are missed.   From Sweet Charity (book by Neil Simon, music by Cy Coleman, lyrics by Dorothy Fields), "There's Gotta Be Something Better than This," sung by Chita Rivera, Donna McKechnie, and Bebe Neuwirth at a one-night only concert in 1997: Video posted by primativo7   From Promises, Promises (book by Neil Simon, music by Burt Bacharach, lyrics by Hal David), "I'll Never Fall In Love Again," sung by Kristin Chenowe...

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"...

Okay, not really, not for most of us. But today is Valentine's Day! So here's "My Funny Valentine," by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, sung by Judy Blazer: Video posted by New World Records 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 young woman about her new boyfriend, a young man named--wait for it--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 hopelessly naive and idealistic--a dope, to her way of thinking. Not that it's not a lovely, romantic song on its own because it is, ruefully expressing the impossibility of explaining even to yourself why people love who they love. *** As suggested above, Babes in Arms was written by the songwriting and Bro...