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Stuck on Show Tunes

All this time spent with Sirius radio and the Broadway channel has got me stuck on show tunes. I can't get them out of my head.

I am a Readers' Digest baby--I grew up in a house filled with Readers' Digest books, the condensed ones my mother read from cover to faux-leather-bound cover. We received a shipment every month. It was through this book club that my mother ordered a song book full of all the great show tunes from Broadway and from the movies. We kept it open at the piano, so it was always available to me when I wanted to sit down and plunk out a few tunes.

I discovered George and Ira Gershwin:

There's a somebody I'm longing to see...I hope that he turns out to be ...Someone who'll watch over me

I fell in love with the tunes of Show Boat (hooray for Kern and Hammerstein--oh, and the gorgeous Howard Keel) :

Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly...I gotta love one man 'til I die...So I can't help lovin' that man of mine.

I played Cole Porter:

Time marches on and soon it's plain...You've won my heart and I've lost my brain...It's delightful, it's delicious, it's de-lovely.

There was Body and Soul, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, S'Wonderful, Blue Skies, Begin the Beguine, Stardust, and one of my favorites:

You're the cream in my coffee...you're the salt in my stew...you will always be my necessity...I'd be lost without you.

Ah, now that I have discovered show tunes on the radio, it's all coming back to me--how I spent hours as a kid playing through that old book, dog-earring the pages with my favorite tunes and mooning over the lyrics and the schmaltzy arrangements. Other kids were out at parties and making out with boys, but I sat happily on the piano bench and pretended to be accompanying Fred Astaire--Someday when I'm feeling low, and the world is cold, I will feel a glow just thinking of you, and the way you look to night. What a dork.

This old wonderful book is sold used on Amazon. I think I'll order one and play me a tune or two.

Comments

Cheltenhamdailyphoto said…
Well, thank goodness for Readers Digest then, eh. Who'd have thought it. Must say i've never looked inside them much, but somehow assumed it was full of readers' letters beginning "Imagine my surprise when..." and "Why oh why oh why..."
8:03 AM
Anonymous said…
Ah yes...show tunes. I too have been a lover of Broadway shows and all those "schmaltzy" arrangements! They're awesome :) I remember having those Readers' Digest condensed books around too...in fact, I think I inherited several of them...now gathering dust on my bookshelf. Perhaps I'll dig one out...
Pianist friend
8:18 AM
dive said…
Me too, Robyn. The proper old Readers' Digest books, not the silly magazine you get now. I think Mum's still got loads of them.
And I love all of those tunes …
8:53 AM
Scout said…
Lynn, the hardback condensed novels aren't the same as the magazines.

PF, I may have to borrow your dusty old copies if I can't get them on Amazon.

Dive, I'm surprised Mum doesn't have the songbooks as well. They're great fun.
10:38 AM
Neponset River Bridge Dig said…
George Gershwin a true genious of music
10:39 AM
Alifan said…
Mum did have some wonderful old song sheets,!!!! as my Mum used to sing in a concert party, and rather early for you Robyn, "Hang out the washing on the segfried line" (I have possible spelt that wrong, and "Nobody loves a fairy when she's forty"....."Moonlight Bay" A Nightingale sang in Berkley Square"and loads more,Dive will tell you I am sure of some of the things I used to play on the piano..rather badly...

Also yes I have still got some old Readers Digest hard backed books....! does that make me more sad than cool!
2:22 PM
Gina said…
Show tunes, when I am in a certain mood, make me happy.
3:31 PM
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