LAUGHTER IS THE BEST JETTISON (of your blues)

“Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone.” –Ella Wheeler Wilcox, from her poem SOLITUDE (1883)

Well, I don’t know about the world, but if you consider this post of mine ‘laughable,’ it’s a start. So let’s get started.

Life has changed a bit since the above song was recorded in 1925, but much of life is still no laughing matter….which is why many of us can relate to this Audrey Hepburn quote:

“I love people who make me laugh… It’s probably the most important thing in a person.” I love you too, Audrey — but you make me blush.

Moving on (modest fellow that I am), let us not dwell on me, because nothing is “on me” — at my dwelling, you pay to stay, just like my ever-lovin’ wife.

Speaking of life and love….

….and then there’s Billie Holiday’s take:

“Lose all your blues laughing at life”? Nice work if you can get it — but that’s another song for another day.

WINTERTIME, AND THE LIVIN’ AIN’T EASY

“The most serious charge which can be brought against New England is not Puritanism, but February.” –Joseph Wood Krutch, American writer, critic and naturalist (1893-1970)

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If you’re a blog follower of Rivergirl, my Maine squeeze (metaphysically speaking, of course), you know that she’s had winter trouble right there in River’s city (actually, town) this month….so I thought I’d post a few winter-weary weather songs to help her (and you) go wassailing through the rest of the month.

Hollywood knows There’s No Business Like Show Business (they made a movie of it in 1954), but it seems Old Hollywood also knew there’s no business like snow business:

But New England and Old Hollywood have nothing on this place when it comes to snow and freezing weather (even the song about it was written by comrade Cold Porter, if I’m not mitaken):

Cheers!

I GOT MORE QUESTIONS

February 15 seems a particularly appropriate date for the promised follow-up to my last post (I GOT QUESTIONS), as it is the birthday of two great Golden Age of Popular Music composers whose legacy of quality tunes includes several “question songs.”

The first of these composers is a man most of us over the age of ?? have heard of: Harold Arlen, who, along with lyricist Yip Harburg, wrote the score of the perennial film classic THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939), as well a host of other all-time standards. The following, one of his lesser-known songs, is from the 1948 film CASBAH, sung here by crooner Tony Martin in a scene from the movie, which also stars Peter Lorre and Yvonne de Carlo:

Our other birthday composer, equally as prolific as the first, is, sadly, little-remembered today: Walter Donaldson. Who could forget this scene from SUZY (1936), starring Jean Harlow and ‘guess who’ singing this memorable Walter Donaldson song:

Did you guess who ‘guess who’ is? If you guessed Jimmy Stewart, you’re absolutely….wrong. It’s none other than Cary Grant, looking good in his WWI French aviator uniform….and not sounding bad either.

For my final “question” selection, I turn to a more recent (1969) song which asks a question most of us have asked ourselves at some point:

Feb. 15 also being Presidents Day, we might ask the above question of King (aka ex-President) Trump. We all know what Your Highness would NOT like: Doing the Rest of Your Life behind bars. After all, it’s not as if THE WAY YOU WERE were a wheeler-dealer of MAGA misdemeanors. High crimes? That’s another question entirely.

I GOT QUESTIONS

A few days ago —

— a dreamy old, half-remembered song did a reprise in my head, where, before I knew it…. Well, before I get ahead of myself, perhaps I should let you know the title of the song in question:

This clip, from the 1933 film SITTING PRETTY starring Ginger Rogers (consider yourself a Golden Age movies fan if you recognized her), is typical of elaborately staged song-and-dance scenes in 1930s musicals. 1933 is also notable as the year Ginger was first paired with Fred Astaire in a film (FLYING DOWN TO RIO).

Getting back to “before I knew it,” there was an aftermath of one thing leading to another, and the above song had me thinking about other title-question songs, of which there were more than a few in those Depression era days. It then became a question of how many such songs are too many for one post….so I’ll do just one more for now: the unforgettable Great Depression anthem….

Brother, if you can spare the time, I’ll be back next post with one more round of questioning songs.

S.O.B. MONTH

Are you a S.O.B.? I don’t mean someone like Donald Trump (or some other male malefactor). I mean one Dr. Gayle Carson, who in Feb. 2002 originated Spunky Old Broads Month to celebrate sassy seniors such as my wife (who is not only a Spunky Old Broad, but is married to a S.O.T. (Spoiled Old Turd). How lucky can a gal get?

In noting this audacious occasion, I thought (what right have I to think, you may ask, if you’re a S.O.B.) that I would post a post of post-menopausal women’s quotes covering a broad range of this and that:

“I refuse to admit I’m more than fifty-two even if that does make my sons illegitimate.” –Lady Nancy Astor

“The main difference between men and women is that men are lunatics and women are idiots.” –Rebecca West

At this point, you may raise the following question, as Peggy Lee did when she wrote and sang….

Well, as the lunatic said to the idiot, when I think of something more, I’ll let you know. Meanwhile, back at the quotes:

“Failing to be there when a man wants her is a woman’s greatest sin, except to be there when he doesn’t want her.” –Helen Rowland

“Women are one of the Almighty’s enigmas to prove to men that He knows more than they do.” –Ellen Glasgow

“It is the plain women who know about love; beautiful women are too busy being fascinating.” — Katherine Hepburn

“Time is a dressmaker specializing in alterations.” –Faith Baldwin

“Hollywood is the land of yes-men and acqui-yes girls.” –Dorothy Parker

“It’s not the men in my life that counts — it’s the life in my men.” –Mae West

“I have everything I had twenty years ago, only it’s all a little bit lower.” –Gypsy Rose Lee

“I am as pure as the driven slush. –Tallulah Bankhead

“Wit lies in the likeness of things that are different, and in the difference of things that are alike.” –Madame Germaine de Stael

Far be it from me to ne pas etre d’accord avec a French Madame. Vive la difference!

TRUMP, THE MUSICAL

With the impeachment trial of Dumbo J. Trump just around the proverbial corner, it strikes me that a musical based on vintage songs would score with political theater-goers to symbolize what Dumbo did to warrant prosecution. With that hoary plot in mind, I’m working allegretto to dig up such songs and cop-out canticles as may begetto a libretto before I forgetto:

GROW, GROW, GROW YOUR VOTE — sung, not to the tune of (11,780 votes shy) Georgia On My Mind, but to….

‘TAIN’T NO SIN TO INCITE MOBS TO BREAK IN — to the tune of….

The prosecution rests. Ladies and gentlemen of the audience: What is your verdict?

Does the defendant have any last words before we pronounce sentence on His Dumboness (played in the musical by Humperbert Engeldinck, or something like that)?

We now pronounce you man and life (sentence).

Without objection.

TOMBSTONE TERRITORY

“Who among us has not, from time to time, thought about his or her own epitaph or, for that matter, the epitaphs of others?” –Tony Randall (1920-2004), comedic actor

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I can think of no more opportune time than the last day of the month to compose a post featuring epitaphs of decomposed ‘somebodies’ (as opposed to ‘nobodies’). Thus, I have undertaken to resurrect famous last words before this day is over — to be followed by a cross section of churchly epitaphs, before ending with….well, we’ll cross that Rubicon when we get there. Meanwhile, let’s get underway with the epitaph* of a famed movie mogul who died, appropriately enough, on the last day of January, 1974:

I THOUGHT I’D NEVER LIVE TO SEE THE DAY (apocryphal*) –Samuel Goldwyn, American film producer, who famously said “I don’t think anyone should write their autobiography until after they’re dead.”
* said, but not confirmed, to be his epitaph
I TOLD YOU I WAS SICK –Spike Milligan, British actor (1918-2002)
I WAS BURIED NEAR THIS DYKE,
THAT MY FRIENDS MAY WEEP AS MUCH AS THEY LIKE –William Blake, English poet (1757-1827)
THAT’S ALL, FOLKS –Mel Blanc, “Man of a thousand voices” (1908-1989)

But that’s not all. After all, I worked religiously to dig up these:

THE GRAVES AROUND FOR MANY A YEAR
WERE DUG BY HIM WHO SLUMBERS HERE,
TILL WORN WITH AGE, HE DROPPED HIS SPADE,
AND IN THE DUST, HIS BONES WERE LAID
–William Darnbrough, church sexton, Yorkshire, England

HERE LIES AT REST, I DO PROTEST, ONE CHEST WITHIN ANOTHER;
THE CHEST OF WOOD WAS VERY GOOD – WHO SAYS SO OF THE OTHER?
–Rev. Mr. Chest, unpopular 17th Century Vicar of Chepstow, England

BUT, BE WE IN THE TOMB, IN HEAVEN ALLIED,
SO KINDER DEATH SHALL GRANT WHAT LIFE DENIED.
–Saint Thomas More, English social philosopher and Renaissance humorist

Let us end with what might be called pre-epitaphs: ‘ghostwritten’ epitaphs of people who aren’t dead yet:

THIS ISN’T FUNNY –Jackie Farber, editor of a humorous book by Tony Randall (see opening quote)
I’VE DONE THIS BEFORE –Shirley MacLaine, actress who once claimed she was the brother of a 35,000 year old spirit named Ramtha in a previous life in Atlantis
SO WHAT IF I’VE GONE TO POT —
I WON RE-ELECTION BY A LOT (NOT) –Donald Trump, loser-President who once claimed he was human
I’M NOT A-MUSED — M. Muse, whose last request is that you Please, Please….

JAN. 26 IS SPOUSE’S DAY

As a long-standing spouse,
I’d be lying if I say
That I am a louse….
At least, not every day.

As for MY spouse,
I can’t complain —
She may ruffle and grouse,
But at least, I’m still sane.

Now, you may say to me,
I’m just trying to be funny —
But what kind of bee would I be
Without my sweet honey?

But enough about my honey bee and me. Let’s see how other reasonably sane observers say (and sing) it:

“It’s no disgrace for a woman to make a mistake in marrying — every woman does it.” –Ed Howe (And how — except, of course, for mistermuse’s wife)
“The bonds of matrimony are like any other bonds — they mature slowly.” –Peter De Vries
“What man sees in love is woman; what woman sees in man is love.” –Arsène Houssaye
“Life is full of troubles, and most of them are man-maid.” –Evan Esar
“Getting married, like getting hanged, is a great deal less dreadful than it has been made out.” -H.L. Mencken
“A happy marriage is a long conversation that seems all too short.” –André Maurois

small TALK (with NOTES)

“If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.” –Martin Luther King, Jr.

I saw the above quote in (seriously) the comics section of this morning’s newspaper; hence, the idea of composing a post composed of songs composed by great composers of “small” songs”….but first (to help get you thinking small), a bit of small talk in the form of a few more “small” quotes:

“Life is too short to be small.’ –Benjamin Disraeli
“It’s the small things that annoy us: we can sit on a mountain, but not on a tack.” –Evan Esar
“In a small town, a rich man is respected, a great man suspected.” –George Bernard Shaw

And now for the (musical) notes, starting with a song sung by a big lady with a ‘small’ voice and a great feel for the lyrics:

Next, we have a seemingly ‘tipsy’ Jack Teagarden singing a song about a little man (no, not the little man too long in the White House) who wasn’t there in the wee small hours of the morning:

We leave you with a song about a (‘too-big-for-its-britches’?) world in need of a shrink:

SEE YOU LATER, ALLIGATOR (AFTER WHILE, AT YOUR TRIAL)

Dear President Trump (in Spanish-speaking countries, aka Presidente Demente),

As a lover of high-class music and a connoisseur of down-in-the-sewer presidents, I offer for your approbation a selection of appropriate songs for your subjects to remember you by after tomorrow’s adios from the offal office. In plain English, we begin with….

Parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall cry hosanna come noon manana — while your base is battling the….

So come on, world! Let’s CELEBRATE!