The Song Stuck in My Head When I Woke Up This Morning

Fats Waller & His Rhythm
"I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter"

Recorded 11/07/1934.



Music by Fred Ahlert, lyrics by Roy Turk

I'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter,
And make believe it came from you,
I'm gonna right words oh, so sweet,
They're gonna knock me off my feet,
A lot of kisses on the bottom,
I'll be glad I got 'em!

I'm gonna smile and say, "I hope you're feeling better,"
And close with love the way you do;
I'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter,
And make believe it came from you!

Gonna smile and say, "I hope you're feeling better,"
And close with love the way you do;
I'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter,
And make believe, make believe, make believe it came from you!

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.

The Song Stuck in My Head When I Woke Up This Morning

Bloody television commercials. I'm still struggling spiritually with those Cadillac ads using "Start" by The Jam. Though why it would surprise me at this point is a good question.

I've finally accepted that all of the "we're rock and roll rebels!" of the Sixties have sold out, starting with Eric Clapton's Michelob ad back in 1986. But to hear The Clash and The Jam used to sell things on TV . . . My frail punk-era heart can hardly stand it.

And so, one effect of being subjected to Kapitalism's insidious psychological warfare is to start the day with "Start" stuck in my head.

The song comes from The Jam's great 1980 album, Sound Affects, which - as you can tell - showed the influence of the Beatles (the bassline is straight out of George Harrison's "Taxman") and, according to All Music Guide, reflected singer-songwriter Paul Weller's "recent readings of Blake and Shelley (who was quoted on the sleeve), but more specifically Geoffrey Ash, whose Camelot and the Vision of Albion made a strong impression."

Did I miss the Blake and Shelley connection when I was 16? I don't remember that part.

Here's The Jam. . . .



It's not important for you to know my name -
Nor I to know yours
If we communicate for two minutes only
It will be enough

For knowing that someone in this world
Feels as desperate as me -
And what you give is what you get.

It doesn't matter if we never meet again,
What we have said will always remain.
If we get through for two minutes only,
It will be a start!

For knowing that someone in this life,
Loves with a passion called hate
And what you give is what you get.

If I never ever see you -
If I never ever see you -
If I never ever see you - again.

And what you give is what you get!

The Song Stuck in My Head When I Woke Up This Morning

If you've ever wondered what it would sound like if Tom Waits recorded Bob Dylan's "The Man in the Long Black Coat" with a little groove, it might go something like this.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: "Red Right Hand" from Let Love In (1994).



Take a little walk to the edge of town
Go across the tracks
Where the viaduct looms,
like a bird of doom
As it shifts and cracks
Where secrets lie in the border fires,
in the humming wires
Hey man, you know
you're never coming back
Past the square, past the bridge,
past the mills, past the stacks
On a gathering storm comes
a tall handsome man
In a dusty black coat with
a red right hand

He'll wrap you in his arms,
tell you that you've been a good boy
He'll rekindle all the dreams
it took you a lifetime to destroy
He'll reach deep into the hole,
heal your shrinking soul
But there won't be a single thing
that you can do
He's a god, he's a man,
he's a ghost, he's a guru
They're whispering his name
through this disappearing land
But hidden in his coat
is a red right hand

Don't got no money?
He'll get you some
You don't have no car? He'll get you one
You don't have no self-respect,
you feel like an insect
Well don't you worry, buddy,
'cause here he comes
Through the ghettos and the barrio
and the bowery and the slum
A shadow is cast wherever he stands
Stacks of green paper in his
red right hand

[Organ solo]

You'll see him in your nightmares,
you'll see him in your dreams
He'll appear out of nowhere but
he ain't what he seems
You'll see him in your head,
on the TV screen
Hey, buddy, I'm warning you
to turn it off
He's a ghost, he's a god,
he's a man, he's a guru
You're one microscopic cog
in his catastrophic plan
Designed and directed by
his red right hand

The Song Stuck in My Head When I Woke Up This Morning

Yeah, I've been thinking about rock and roll, and listening to it a lot lately, but I've also been grooving on a collection of chansons douces by Henri Salvador, so it's no surprise that I woke up this morning with his magnificent "Syracuse" stuck in my head. To be honest, this dreamy travelogue has been stuck in my head from the moment I first heard it, several years ago.

Salvador is an international artist who's sadly unknown in the U.S. (Surprise!) He started performing in the 1930s and just released his new album, Révérence, a few months ago, which was given 4 stars in The Guardian, and includes performances with Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil.

The man is 90 years old. And his voice is still incredible!

His version of the French chanson style has included elements of jazz and Brazilian music, and his own career has been long, varied, and fascinating. He played with Django Reinhardt back in the 1930s; won the prestigious Grand Prix du Disque de l'Académie Charles Cros in 1949; wrote over 400 songs with Boris Vian in the 1950s, the two of them basically introducing the French to rock and roll; had several "novelty song" hits; performed on the Ed Sullivan show here and had his own popular television show in France; did a series of children's albums in in the 1970s; and recorded with Quincy Jones, Ray Charles, and most recently, with Rosa Passos, on her highly regarded - and sexy (lovers, take note) - album, Amorosa.

So how do such impressive people like this vanish on the radar in the U.S.?

Unfortunately, the sound quality of this YouTube version of "Syracuse" doesn't convey the amazing production values on the original recording. The sound on my CD is so lush and open that you feel like you could just let go and fall back into it, be carried away on a cloud-pillow to the Gardens of Babylon.



Here's my quick translation of the lyrics - take them with a grain of salt; my French is nominal.

Syracuse
Words: Bernard Dimey. Musique: Henri Salvador. 1962

I would love so much to see Syracuse,
Easter Island and Kairouan,
And the large birds which amuse themselves
gliding on their wings on the wind.

See the gardens of Babylon
And the palace of the grand Lama,
To dream of the lovers of Verona
At the summit of Fuji-Yama.

See the country on a calm morning
Go fishing with the cormorant
And drinking palm wine
While listening to the wind sing.

Before my youth is worn out
And my springtimes have departed
I would love to see Syracuse
So I could remember it in Paris.

"Syracuse"

J'aimerais tant voir Syracuse
L'île de Pâques et Kairouan
Et les grands oiseaux qui s'amusent
A glisser l'aile sous le vent.

Voir les jardins de Babylone
Et le palais du grand Lama
Rêver des amants de Vérone
Au sommet du Fuji-Yama.

Voir le pays du matin calme
Aller pêcher au cormoran
Et m'enivrer de vin de palme
En écoutant chanter le vent.

Avant que ma jeunesse s'use
Et que mes printemps soient partis
J'aimerais tant voir Syracuse
Pour m'en souvenir à Paris.

UPDATE: Just found a recent live version of "Syracuse." The arrangment is a little schmaltzy (it's some big telelvision special), but Salvador's voice is still great, and the sound quality is much better. Miss the awesome finger snapping in the original, though.

Not Quite the Song Stuck in My Head When I Woke Up This Morning

La Reina and I watched Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers in The Gay Divorcee last night, and when we woke up this morning, we both had "The Continental," the big, final musical number from the film, stuck in our heads. Alas, YouTube doesn't have any clips from The Gay Divorcee, so one has to suffer through one of cinema's most famous dance sequences: Irving Berlin's "Cheek to Cheek," from Top Hat. The last 3 minutes of this are simply amazing and beautiful. And, IMHO, it's still not even Fred & Ginger at their best.

The Song Stuck in My Head When I Woke Up This Morning

I had a dream that I was playing piano. I was also part of the music, which took the form of something like mercury. This was the song - a great, underrated Beatles tune.




The Beatles ~ Hey Bulldog

The Song Stuck in My Head When I Woke Up This Morning

"Le plat pays" by Jacques Brel