My Favorite Cole Porter Lyric... You're The Top!

For a man that is noted for being versatile, this song is not only a long time favorite, but carries special meaning for me.

At words poetic, I'm so pathetic

That I always have found it best,

Instead of getting 'em off my chest,

To let 'em rest unexpressed,

I hate parading my serenading

As I'll probably miss a bar,

But if this ditty is not so pretty

At least it'll tell you

How great you are.

You're the top!

You're the Coliseum.

You're the top!

You're the Louver Museum.

You're a melody from a symphony by Strauss

You're a Bendel bonnet,

A Shakespeare's sonnet,

You're Mickey Mouse.

You're the Nile,

You're the Tower of Pisa,

You're the smile on the Mona Lisa

I'm a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop,

But if, baby, I'm the bottom you're the top!

You're the top!

You're Mahatma Gandhi.

You're the top!

You're Napoleon Brandy.

You're the purple light

Of a summer night in Spain,

You're the National Gallery

You're Garbo's salary,

You're cellophane.

You're sublime,

You're turkey dinner,

You're the time, the time of a Derby winner

I'm a toy balloon that’s fated soon to pop

But if, baby, I'm the bottom,

You're the top!

You're the top!

You're an arrow collar

You're the top!

You're a Coolidge dollar,

You're the nimble tread

Of the feet of Fred Astaire,

You're an O'Neill drama,

You're Whistler's mama!

You're camembert.

You're a rose,

You're Inferno's Dante,

You're the nose

On the great Durante.

I'm just in a way,

As the French would say, "de trop".

But if, baby, I'm the bottom,

You're the top!

You're the top!

You're a dance in Bali.

You're the top!

You're a hot tamale.

You're an angel, you are

Simply too, too, too diveen,

You're a Boticcelli,

You're Keats,

You're Shelly!

You're Ovaltine!

You're a boom,

You're the dam at Boulder,

You're the moon,

Over Mae West's shoulder,

I'm the nominee of the G.O.P.

Or GOP!

But if, baby, I'm the bottom,

You're the top!

You're the top!

You're a Waldorf salad.

You're the top!

You're a Berlin ballad.

You're the boats that glide

On the sleepy Zuider Zee,

You're an old Dutch master,

You're Lady Astor,

You're broccoli!

You're romance,

You're the steppes of Russia,

You're the pants, on a Roxy usher,

I'm a broken doll, a fol-de-rol, a blop,

But if, baby, I'm the bottom,

You're the top!

Cole Porter
1935

Born On This Day- April 8th... Lyricist Fred Ebb

"One thing I know, & I've always known is I am my own best friend"
Chicago (1977)




You readers know by now that I have a passion for the lyrics that go with the music.Fred Ebb was a real master of the the musical theatre & the popular song. His work has had a huge influence on me & I had the privilege of performing his songs when I played Herr Shultz in Cabaret in Seattle in 1990. His lyrics have touched me, entertained & amazed me for over 5 decades.


He is dead & he still had a show open on Broadway this month - The Scottsboro Boys... now that is prolific! As a writer, lyricist, composer & director, Fred Ebb made incalculable contributions to the theatre & popular song. Mr. Ebb is a Tony, Grammy, Emmy, Olivier & Kennedy Center Honors Lifetime Achievement Award winner. Fred Ebb's first professional songwriting assignment came in 1953 when he was hired by Columbia Records to write a song for Judy Garland called Heartbroken. Mr. Ebb was introduced to composer John Kander in 1964 by music publisher Tommy Valando & they became one of the most legendary songwriting teams in American Theatre history. Their 1st successful collaboration was the song My Coloring Book recorded by Barbra Streisand.


Their 2nd theatrical collaboration, Flora, the Red Menace, created a star out of Liza Minnelli in her Tony Award winning Broadway debut. In 1966, Cabaret, opened & received 7 Tony Awards including Best Musical & Best Score. A 1972 movie version of Cabaret starring Liza Minnelli was nominated for 10 Academy Awards & won 8, & was nominated for 9 Golden Globe Awards & won 3 including Best Picture Musical or Comedy. The same year, the songwriting team wrote a number of songs for Minnelli's television special Liza With a Z, directed by Bob Fosse which received an Emmy Award. In 1975, the pair wrote the Broadway musical Chicago, directed by Bob Fosse & starring Gwen Verdon, Chita Rivera & Jerry Orbach.


That musical was successfully revived 20 years later at City Center ENCORES! & subsequently transferred to Broadway where it is currently the longest running revival in Broadway history. In 1977, the team collaborated with Martin Scorsese on the movie New York, New York; the title song was introduced by Liza Minnelli & later recorded by Frank Sinatra, becoming the unofficial theme song of New York City. The Minnelli Broadway vehicle The Act also opened that year. After a  4 year absence, Mr. Ebb & Mr. Kander returned with Woman of the Year (1981), The Rink (1984), Kiss of the Spiderwoman (1985) & Steel Pier (1997). Miramax's 2002 feature film Chicago was nominated for 13 Academy Awards & won six, including Best Picture & was nominated for 8 Golden Globe Awards & won 3, including Best Picture, Musical or Comedy.


Two of his "flops" Zorba (1968) & 70 Girls 70 (1971) have 2 of my favorite scores.


For years Fred Ebb lived and worked in an apartment overlooking New York's Central Park. He decorated his apartment with theatre memorabilia & German Expressionist paintings & drawings, & he collected record albums as a hobby. Fred Ebb died on September 11, 2004.






Its good, isn't it?
Grand, isn't it?
Great, isn't it?
Swell, isn't it?
Fun, isn't it?
Nowadays
There's men, everywhere
Jazz, everywhere
Booze, everywhere
Life, everywhere
Joy, everywhere
Nowadays
You can like the life you're living
You can live the life you like
You can even marry Harry
But mess around with Ike
And that's good, isn't it?
Grand, isn't it?
Great, isn't it?
Swell, isn't it?
Fun, isn't it?
But nothing stays
In fifty years or so
It's gonna change, you know
But, oh, it's heaven
Nowadays

Born On This Day- November 18th... Songwriter Johnny Mercer

One hundred years ago today, Johnny Mercer was born in Savannah, Ga., & he grew up to be one of the most popular lyricists of the American Songbook. He was decidedly, not gay, but Johnny Mercer is one my favorite lyricist. He wrote witty, smart, insightful lyrics. Mercer wrote the words, & sometimes the music, for more than 1,500 songs, with more than 200 collaborators, among them composers Harold Arlen, Hoagy Carmichael & Jerome Kern. He was nominated for 18 Academy Awards & won 4. He was the 1st president of the Songwriters Hall Of Fame & the founder of Capitol Records. Mercer was a charming & talented man & a favorite of mine. Here are some of the songs that he supplied the words for:
Hit The Road To Dream Land, Blues In The Night, Skylark, One For My Baby, Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive, Dream, Come Rain Or Come Shine, Any Place I Hang My Hat Is Home, Autumn Leaves, Something’s Gotta Give, & Moon River.

Here is Robbie Williams doing the greatest Saloon Song of all time:


It's quarter to three, there's no one in the place except you & me
So, set 'em up, Joe, I got a little story you oughta know
We're drinkin', my friend, to the end of a brief episode
Make it one for my baby & one more for the road


I got the routine, so drop another nickel in the music machine
I'm feelin' so bad, wish you'd make the music pretty & sad
Could tell you a lot, but you've got to be true to your code
So, make it one for my baby & one more for the road


You'd never know it but buddy, I'm a kind of poet
& I got a lot of things to say
& when I'm gloomy, you simply gotta listen to me
Till it's all talked away

Well that's how it goes & Joe...  I know your gettin' pretty anxious to close
So, thanks for the cheer, I hope you didn't mind my bendin' your ear
This torch that I found must be drowned or it soon might explode
So, make it one for my baby and one more for the road
That long, long road

September Song

Oh, it’s a long, long while from May to December,
& the days grow short when you reach September.
The autumn weather turns the leaves to flame,
& I haven’t got the time for the waiting game.
Oh, the days dwindle down to a precious few;
September, November. . . .
& these few precious days I’ll spend with you,
These precious days I’ll spend with you.

It is only the 2nd day of September, we have another couple of weeks of summer to enjoy, & late September & October can be glorious in Portland, but I still feel real melancholy for the end of summer. Summer is my favorite season & August is my favorite month (it has 31 days & no holidays). I know my friends in NYC & Chicago had the coolest & wettest summers ever while Portland had a record 10 days in a row over 90 degrees, including 5 days over 100. Still, there is now a hint of Autumn in the air, especially in the morning. I find myself drawn to this song, as I have been many times in my life. It is from a musical- Knickerbocker Holiday (1938) with music by Kurt Weill & lyrics by Maxwell Anderson. It is a beautiful song that makes me a little sad… in a good way. I offer you 2 versions, by 2 of my favorite, but very different singers. I once stole a look at my audition card ( for Side By Side By Sondheim… I did get cast) & the director had written- “a young Jimmy Durante”. I was very flattered.

Reflections On A Song Lyric

How often is someone concerned
With the tiniest thread of your life?
Concerned with whatever you feel
& whatever you touch?
Look over there…

When your world spins too fast,
& your bubble has burst,
Someone puts himself last,
So that you can come first.

So count all the loves who will love you
From now ’til the end of your life,
& when you have added the loves
Who have loved you before,
Look over there.

Jerry Herman
Look Over There from La Cage Aux Folles

Gay Pride, Musical Comedy Queens... & Howard Ashman, born on this day- May 17th 1950

One of my favorite things about Gay Pride Parades are all the sub-sets in Gaydom: Bears, Twinks, Leather Daddies, Dykes On Bikes, Gay Parents of Gifted Children, Gay Presbyterians, Gay AA, Gay AAA, Transgendered Employees of The Gas Company, The Polyamorous V-8 Club, Lesbian Librarians, Radical Faires & The Sprites That Love Them, Butches & Fems, Leather Men That Like To Knit, Faggot Cheerleaders, Bisexual Small People, Senior Lesbian Couples That Raise Chickens, Gay Male Interior Designers With Jack Russell Terriers, Silver Foxes, Gays Who Watch Fox News, Tweakers Who Twitter, Gay Mayors In A Heap O' Trouble, & Middle Aged Recovering Musical Comedy Queens.... all marching together in pride.

I was a berserk MUSICAL COMEDY QUEEN from the very beginning. When I was 10 years old, I was fascinated, entranced & obsessed with my parents' Original Cast Album of My Fair Lady. It had a Hirshfeld drawing of George Bernard Shaw as- God, the puppeteer in the clouds, with Julie Andrews & Rex Harrison as marionettes. To this day my image of God is George Bernard Shaw pulling the strings. I loved the music so much & would come home every day from school, put the album on the stereo & sing all the parts of this amazing musical. I was very effective as Alfred Doolittle, even at 10 years old (a character actor from the start). As a child, I would go to Woolworth's & scour the cut-out bin for obscure Original Cast Albums like Goldilocks, Salad Days, Greenwillow, Cindy, Henry, Sweet Henry, & the cast albums of the Finnish & Japanese companies of Hello, Dolly!.

After a few decades, I seemed to loose interest in musicals, as my tastes moved to Rock n' Roll & Pop & I opted out of the entire Miss Saigon, Sunset Boulevard, Le Miz, Cats era of musicals. I still loved performing in musicals, but I no longer spent an afternoon playing & singing along to Original Cast Albums.... until Little Shop of Horrors in 1982. This musical sent me over the edge again & I spent the summer of 1983 in our apartment on Capitol Hill in Seattle, singing Suddenly, Seymour.

Howard Ashman was director, lyricist & book writer for the 1980 Broadway musical, Smile (music by Marvin Hamlisch). Along with Alan Menken, Ashman was the co-recipient of two Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes & two Oscars. His second Academy Award in 1992 was awarded posthumously for Best Song & was accepted by his partner, Bill Lauch.

The song writing team of lyricist Howard Ashman & composer Alan Menken earned their greatest fame scoring animated classics The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. Born in Baltimore on this day- May 17th 1950, he studied at Boston University before earning his master's degree from Indiana University in 1974. He then relocated to New York City, accepting a publishing job while moonlighting as a playwright. Dreamstuff, his musical adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest, was soon produced at the WPA Theatre, where Ashman served as artistic director from 1976 to 1982. For 1979's musical adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater he first teamed with Alan Menken, also his collaborator on 1982's Little Shop of Horrors. Based on the 1960 Roger Corman B-movie cult classic, Little Shop of Horrors was an unprecedented success; the highest-grossing production in off-Broadway history, it earned the New York Drama Critics Award & the Drama Desk Award. The 1986 film version also earned Ashman & Menken an Academy Award nomination for the newly added song Mean Green Mother From Outer Space. With the Disney release of The Little Mermaid, they scored an Oscar for Under the Sea, & won again, two years later with the title song Beauty and the Beast. Beauty & The Beast remains the only animated film to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Film. It was produced by, screenplay by & lyrics by Howard Ashman. Sadly, Ashman died of complications from AIDS on March 14, 1991; prior to his death, he & Menken completed three songs for the 1992 Disney feature Aladdin, receiving their final joint Academy Award nomination for A Friend Like Me.


MY FAVORITE ASHMAN LYRIC is Somewhere That's Green:
Seymour's the greatest
But I'm dating a semi-sadist
So I've got a black eye
& my arm's in a cast.
Still, that Seymour's a cutie
Well, if not, he's got inner beauty & I dream of a place
Where we could be together at last

A matchbox of our own
A fence of real chain link,
A grill out on the patio
Disposal in the sink
A washer & a dryer & an ironing machine
In a tract house that we share
Somewhere that's green.
He rakes & trims the grass
He loves to mow & weed
I cook like Betty Crocker & I look like Donna Reed
There's plastic on the furniture
To keep it neat & clean
In the Pine-Sol scented air
Somewhere that's green
Between our frozen dinner & our bedtime, nine-fifteen
We snuggle watchin' Lucy
On our big, enormous twelve-inch screen
I'm his December Bride
He's Father, he Knows Best
Our kids watch Howdy Doody
As the sun sets in the west
A picture out of Better Homes & Gardens magazine...
Far from Skid Row
I dream we'll go
Somewhere that's green.

The Lusty Month of May! It's mad! It's GAY!

May 1st, often called May Day, just might have more holidays than any other day of the year. It is a celebration of Spring. It is a day of political protests. It is a pagan festival, a saint's feast day, & a day for organized labor. In many countries, it is a national holiday. In medieval England, people would celebrate the start of spring by going out to the country or woods—"going a-maying"—& gathering greenery & flowers. Another English tradition is the maypole. Some towns had permanent maypoles that would stay up all year; others put up a new one each May. The pole (a phallus-sign of virility) would be hung with greenery & ribbons, brightly painted, & decorated, & served as a central point for the festivities.

In many countries, May Day is also Labor Day. This originates with the United States labor movement in the late 19th Century. On May 1, 1886, unions across the country went on strike, demanding that the standard workday be shortened to eight hours. The organizers of these strikes included socialists, anarchists, & others in organized labor movements. Rioting in Chicago's Haymarket Square, including a bomb thrown by an anarchist, led to the deaths of a dozen people & the injury of over 100 more.
The protests were successful, as eight-hour work days eventually did become the norm. Labor leaders, socialists, & anarchists around the world took the American strikes & their fallout as a rallying point, choosing May Day as a day for demonstrations, parades, & speeches. It was a major state holiday in the Soviet Union & other communist countries.
Labor Day is still celebrated on May 1 in countries around the world, & it is still often a day for protests & rallies. In recent years, these have often been targeted against globalization. Portland expects at least 5000 people to participate in our annual May Day parade & rally on the South Park Blocks.

I adored the film of CAMELOT when I was 13 years old. I saw it in the theatre, by myself, five times. I would eventually be in the musical three times, playing Merlin in high school & playing Mordred twice in summer stock. In high school, my best friend Rich & I would always re-write lyrics to the songs in our musicals. In Put On Your Sunday Clothes from Hello, Dolly!, we sang the lyric- "get out your beads & buckles & bows" as- "get out your creams & jellys & foams". We found this to be quite hysterical. In Camelot, we sang this Alan Jay Lerner lyric as - "It's May! The CRUSTY month of May!". We would sing in full voice, in production & nobody seemed to notice. I was & am, eternally a bad boy!

I think Alan Jay Lerner was a brilliant lyricist (just think of every song from My Fair Lady).

From Camelot, I offer:

It's May!

The lusty month of May!

That lovely month when ev'ryone goes

Blissfully astray

It's here!

That shocking time of year

When tons of wicked little thoughts

Merrily appear!

It's May! It's May!

That gorgeous holiday

When ev'ry maiden prays that her lad

Will be a cad!

It's mad! It's gay!

A libelous display!

Those dreary vows that ev'ryone takes

Ev'ryone breaks

Ev'ryone makes divine mistakes

The lusty month of May!

It's May!

The lusty month of May!

That darling month when ev'ryone throws

Self-control away

It's time to do

A wretched thing or two,

And try to make each precious day

One you'll always rue!

It's May! It's May!

The month of "yes you may",

The time for ev'ry frivolous whim,

Proper or "im"

It's wild! It's gay!

A blot in ev'ry way

The birds and bees with all of their vast

Amorous past

Gaze at the human race aghast,

The lusty month of May!

So...pick some posies, be one with the workers of the world & get a little lusty!

Lyrics on Several Occasions

My postings got really GAY there for awhile. Gay Life & Gay History are important subjects to me, but certainly not the only interests that I hold.
One of my life long obsessions has been - The Popular Song. When I was very young, I would come home from school at 2:20pm (I had the house to myself until 5:30pm) & I would listen to & dance to music for most of the afternoon (or until Dark Shadows started). I used a candlestick as my microphone & I would pretend that I was a guest on the Mike Douglas Show. I would sing my newest single & then settle down for my interview with Mike. Then Mike Douglas would urge me on to do one more number, as he asked the studio audience to applaud loudly & with enthusiasm to encourage me. I would oblige.
My parents recently made a mixed tape of all my favorite songs from when I was under six years old. They claim that my first favorite song was "Constantinople"... " oh you can't go back to Constantinople, no you can't go back to..." by The Four Lads.
As a very young man I started to collect books about composers. I received a big "coffee table" style book of the Complete Lyrics of Cole Porter for my 12th birthday. I soon had books about all the major composers & lyricists of popular songs & show tunes, which for decades were the same thing. Two of my favorites are Lyrics On Several Occasions by Ira Gershwin (1959) & a big thick collection - Reading Lyrics (2000).
Here are two of my favorite lyrics from two very different talents:

Cole Porter

My story is much to sad to be told
But practically everything leaves me totally cold
The only exception I know is the case
When Im out on a quiet spree, fighting vainly the old ennui
Then I suddenly turn and see your fabulous face

I get no kick from champagne
Mere alcohol doesnt thrill me at all
So tell me why should it be true
That I get a kick out of you

Some get a kick from cocaine
I'm sure that if I took even one sniff
It would bore me terrific'ly too
But I get a kick out of you

I get a kick evrytime I see you standing there before me.
I get a kick though its clear to me
You obviously don't adore me.

I get no kick in a plane.
Flying too high with some guy in the sky
Is my idea of nothing to do,
Yet I get a kick out of you.

(my Complete Lyrics of Cole Porter has 16 more verses... some very ribald)

Elvis Costello

Don't tell me you don't know what love is
When you're old enough to know better
When you find strange hands in your sweater
When your dreamboat turns out to be a footnote
I'm a man with a mission in two or three editions

And I'm giving you a longing look
Everyday, everyday, everyday I write the book

Chapter One we didn't really get along
Chapter Two I think I fell in love with you
You said you'd stand by me in the middle of Chapter Three
But you were up to your old tricks in Chapters Four, Five and Six

And I'm giving you a longing look
Everyday, everyday, everyday I write the book

The way you walk
The way you talk, and try to kiss me, and laugh
In four or five paragraphs
All your compliments and your cutting remarks
Are captured here in my quotation marks

Don't tell me you don't know the difference
Between a lover and a fighter
With my pen and my electric typewriter
Even in a perfect world where everyone was equal
I'd still own the film rights and be working on the sequel

And I'm giving you a longing look
Everyday, everyday, everyday I write the book