A Gershwin Friday Meets The Song Stuck in My Head When I Woke Up This Morning

"By Strauss" was one of George Gershwin's last tunes, written with Ira for their friend Vernon Duke's 1936 Broadway production The Show Is On. It's a playful song about someone (a girl in the original version) who prefers the waltzes of Johann Strauss II to the coarse, loud "new music."

I've always thought this was one of the finest examples of Ira Gershwin's intelligence and wit as a lyricist. The entire first verse is wonderful, and any work that rhymes "souses" with "Strauss's" and "free and easy" with "Viennese-y" is pretty much a miracle of the songwriting craft. Those generations raised in the shadow of the Bob Dylan colossus too often forget (or, sadly, never know) just how damn good some of the tin-pin alley folks were when it came to playing with the English language.

And, of course, the song also features George Gershwin goofing with the waltz form, which was a rare and fascinating occasion in itself.

Ella Fitzgerald has a good version on her George and Ira Gershwin Songbook. Unfortunately, I couldn't find it on YouTube. This one, by Lesley Garrett, is a little too PBS-y for my taste, but she doesn't screw around with the lyrics, and she does give it a fun rendition.



"By Strauss"
(George and Ira Gershwin)

Away with the music of Broadway
Be off with your Irving Berlin
Oh, I give no quarter to Kern or Cole Porter
And Gershwin keeps pounding on tin

How can I be civil when hearing such drivel?
It's only for night-clubbing souses
Oh, give me the free-'n'-easy
waltz that is Vienneasy
and Go tell the band
if they want a hand,
The waltz must be Strauss's

Jah Jah Jah, give me oom-pa-pah
When I want a melody
Lilting through the house
Then I want a melody
By Strauss
It laughs, it sings, the world is in rhyme
Swinging in three-quarter time

Let the Danube flow along
And the Fledermauss
Keep the wine and give me song
By Strauss

By Jove, by Jing, by Strauss is the thing
So, I say to ha-cha-cha, heraus!
Just give me an oom-pa-pah by Strauss!

Let the Danube flow along
And the Fledermauss
Keep the wine and give me song
By Strauss

By Jove, by Jing, by Strauss is the thing
So, I say to ha-cha-cha, heraus!
Just give me an oom-pa-pah by Strauss!

More on "By Strauss" from All Music Guide:

Gershwin wrote this song, featuring lyrics by his brother Ira, for the 1936 Vernon Duke Broadway revue The Show Is On. The Strauss in the title is Johann Strauss, the "waltz king," and the humorous lyrics call for the banishment of the Broadway music of Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, and of Gershwin. This was Gershwin's only song for that production and, ironically, it turned to be the last one to be performed on Broadway before his death in 1937, at the age of 38. Another oddity associated with "By Strauss" is that its original orchestration was lost shortly after the show closed. Now the song is heard in various arrangements by different composers or with Gershwin's original piano accompaniment. "By Strauss" presents a colorful theme sung to a waltz rhythm, its character quite different from Gershwin's style in Porgy and Bess and his earlier Broadway musicals like Oh, Kay! The mood is light, the music lively, and brief passages at the beginning and end quote from Strauss. While there is little jazz here and none of the black American folk idiom so pervasive in much of Gershwin's music, there is that unmistakable wit, that charming impudence typically found in the composer's songs. This is a delightful gem.

A Gershwin Friday: Stairway To Heaven

Gershwin - by Warhol

Fifty years before Led Zeppelin tried their hand at the concept, George Gershwin composed "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise" for George White's Scandals of 1922. The lyrics were by his brother Ira (under the pseudonym Arthur Francis) and Buddy DeSylva, with whom George had written his first complete musical, the very successful La La Lucille, in 1919.

Probably the most famous version of "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise" is the one from the great 1951 musical, An American in Paris, starring Gene Kelly and Oscar Levant, who had been Gershwin's friend and musical interpreter. Georges Guétary performs the song amidst one of those amazing MGM sets, with pink stairs that light up as he ascends, a bevy of beautiful show girls, and Cocteau-like women forming giant, surreal candelabras. The song as originally performed in George White's Scandals of 1922 also involved an elaborate stairway set.



Though Guétary's version is my favorite - love the French intro - musical channeler Rufus Wainwright recently gave the song a good whirl in Martin Scorsese's 2004 film, The Aviator. Here's Rufus performing the song on Conan O'Brien.



Neither of these versions actually contains the complete song. Guétary skips the first half of the first verse, which I like, and which Wainwright nails, especially on the soundtrack. And both men skip the last half of the original.

As far as I'm aware, there is no known version by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant.

"I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise"
(George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin, Buddy DeSylva)

All you preachers
Who delight in panning the dancing teachers,
Let me tell you there are a lot of features
Of the dance that carry you through
The gates of Hea-ven.

It's madness
To be always sitting around in sadness,
When you could be learning the steps of gladness.
You'll be happy when you can do
Just six or seven;

Begin today!
You'll find it nice,
The quickest way to paradise.
When you practice,
Here's the thing to do,
Simply say as you go...

I'll build a stairway to Paradise
With a new step every day!
I'm going to get there at any price;
Stand aside, I'm on my way!
I've got the blues
And up above it's so fair.
Shoes! Go on and carry me there!
I'll build a stairway to Paradise
With a new step ev'ry day.

Ev'ry new step
Helps a bit ; but any old kind of two step,
Does as well. It don't matter what step you step,
If you work it into your soul
You'll get to Heaven.

Get bu-sy ;
Dance with Maud the countess, or just plain Lizzy:
Dance until you're blue in the face and dizzy.
When you've learn'd to dance in your sleep
You're sure to win out.

In time you'll get Saint Vitus dance,
Which beats the latest thing from France.
Take no chances on this Paradise ;
Let me give you advice.

I'll build a stairway to Paradise
With a new step every day!
I'm going to get there at any price;
Stand aside, I'm on my way!
I've got the blues
And up above it's so fair.
Shoes! Go on and carry me there!
I'll build a stairway to Paradise
With a new step ev'ry day.

A Gershwin Friday: I Got Plenty O' Nuttin'

Don't panic! Barack Obama Sammy Davis Jr. analyzes the global economic meltdown and tells you how to survive the crisis. Forget Paulson - Sammy's going with the Gershwin Plan.



I got plenty of nothing
And nothing's plenty for me
I got no car - got no mule
I got no misery

Folks with plenty of plenty
They've got a lock on the door
'Fraid somebody goin' to rob 'em
While there out (a) making more - what for?

I got no lock on the door
That's no way to be
They can steal the rug from the floor
That's OK with me
'Cause the things that I prize
Like the stars in the skies - are all free

I got plenty of nothing
And nothing's plenty for me
I got my gal - got my song
Got heaven the whole day long
No use complaining

Got my gal - got my Lord - got my song

I ain't a-frettin 'bout hell
'Till the time arrives
I'll never worry long as I'm well
Never one to strive
To be good, to be bad
What the hell
I am glad I'm alive

I got plenty of nothing
And nothing's plenty for me
I got my gal - got my song
Got heaven the whole day long
Man, there's no use complaining

Got my gal - got my Lord - got my song

"I Got Plenty O' Nuttin'"
from Porgy and Bess
Music by George Gershwin.
Lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward.

A Gershwin Friday: The Jewish Cowboy Musical

Bronco busters Jacob and Israel Gershowitz (George and Ira Gershwin)

For me, the name Gershwin has always conjured up 1920s New York sophistication. George and Ira hanging out with Fred Astaire and Kay Swift in George's immaculate 5th Avenue art deco penthouse. Parties with young socialites and the artistic elites of the day. Soirées with great Harlem musicians such as James P. Johnson and Willie "the Lion" Smith" playing on George's grand piano.

Lest we forget, however, George and Ira also tackled the cactus and cowboys of the great American west. Their 1930 Broadway show, Girl Crazy, concerns the romantic adventures of Danny Churchill, a young playboy from Manhattan who's been chasing too much skirt and gets sent by his father to a small men's college in Arizona.

Gieber Goldfarb, a Jewish cabbie, drives Danny from 48th Street all the way out west. He winds up staying with Danny and encounters his own adventures - basically being an urban New York Jew trying to survive among rattlesnakes and roughnecks. At one point, about to be lynched by cowboys, Goldfard asks, "So, this is God's country?"

Later, Goldfard disguises himself as a Native American, only to encounter a real Native American named Eaglerock. Andrea Most describes the ensuing scene in her article, "'Big Chief Izzy Horowitz': Theatricality and Jewish Identity in the Wild West" [American Jewish History 87.4 (1999) 313-341.] :

Eaglerock is simply dressed, speaks perfect English, and has just returned from college. When Gieber enters he assumes the pose not of a "real" Indian but of a stage Indian who wears a full headdress, whoops loudly, and speaks a strange "ugga-bugga" language which confuses Eaglerock thoroughly. The two "Indians" try a number of languages before Gieber finally introduces himself in Yiddish. This works, Eaglerock responds, and the two exit speaking animatedly.

Girl Crazy was a big success at the time and made stars of two young actresses: Ginger Rogers and Ethel Merman. Down in the orchestra pit were future big-band legends Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller and Gene Krupa. Hit songs from the show included "But Not for Me," "Embraceable You," and "I Got Rhythm."

But the titles that attract my attention now are those such as "The Lonesome Cowboy," "Bronco Busters," "Land of the Gay Caballero," and "(When It's) Cactus Time in Arizona." In retrospect, it shouldn't be a surprise that the Gershwins would explore the American west as subject material, given how essential it is to our national mythology. Later, of course, George would also delve into the America South for his opera Porgy and Bess.

The 1943 film version of Girl Crazy, with Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney, removed the Jewish elements of the plot.

A few years after Girl Crazy, George and Ira would themselves follow the cattle trail out west (via modern airplane), lured by the siren call of Hollywood. We may think of George Gershwin as being one with New York City - Woody Allen's Manhattan! - but he actually died in Los Angeles in 1937.

In 1943, MGM decided that this Jewish cowboy musical was a perfect vehicle for the ninth pairing of Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney. Sadly, however, the studio removed Gieber Goldfarb and his adventures, as well as his song "Goldfarb, That's I'm!," converting the Gershwins' interesting cultural mix and comic fantasy of a fellow Jewish New Yorker out in the wilds of Arizona into a more comfortable and bland WASP vision of the American west.

It's interesting to note that this erasure of the Jewish elements of the story took place at a time when news about the concentration camps was first coming out of Europe. And that the head of of the studio, Louis B. Mayer, was Jewish himself. Evidently, Hollywood didn't think that a Jewish cabbie and a well-spoken Native American communicating in Yiddish would play in Peoria as it had on Broadway.

What the film does offer, however, is Judy Garland at the height of her vocal powers. And a typically surreal and mind-boggling musical number from Busby Berkeley. Busby was the original director for the movie, but he and Garland clashed on the set, so he was replaced by Norman Taurog. One of the few traces that remain of Berkeley's work is the bizarre finale that features a Tommy Dorsey big-band version of "I Got Rhythm," set out west, with cowboy outfits (perhaps the geekiest ever seen on screen), fake cactus, synchronized six-guns, a cannon fired directly at the audience, and strange, whip-like banners that remind me of Kurosawa.

It all adds up to classic Hollywood weirdness. (Especially the last minute of the video.)

Now, how we go from Jewish cowboy musicals and a freaky Busby Berkeley number to Bird and Diz using the same song as one of the foundations of Be-Bop is . . . well . . . one of those sweet mysteries of life.