A Salute to Larry Hart
Larry Hart is in no need of an assist from me. He's in clover,
enviable in almost any songwriter who didn't compose tunes who has
been dead 65 years.
Tunesmiths, after all, can make you hum even if you forget the lyrics;
Larry Hart's lyrics can be hummed. Think of, say, "Mountain Greenery":
"We could find no keener re-treat from life's machinery, bless our
mountain greenery home" or, from "Blue Room": "You sew your trousseau
and Robinson Crusoe is not more far from worldly cares than our little
blue room way upstairs." Rodgers wrote the melodies first, and then
Hart would put the rhymes on the im****tant notes.
I'm always discovering Rodgers & Hart songs I had not encountered
previously (or not memorably), and I'm always discovering something
else glorious about his placement of a word or a line or a witticism
where one did not expect it. I often acquire CDs of Rodgers & Hart
specialists (all female, hmm), and can recommend or discourage you:
Ella Fitzgerald (A, as always - and she sings the verses); Barbara
Cook (B - a trifle jejune - she was still in her 30s - but often
affecting); Flicka von Stade (C - it's not her voice that is operatic
overblown, it's John McGlinn's orchestrations - still, she does a
lovely mix of standards and oddities); Eileen Farrell (B - I know it's
a classic, and you'll hate me for this, but I find her a little
overbearing in places, such as "Won't You Do A Friend A Favor" - she
does a lovely "You're Nearer" though); and Dawn Upshaw (A - she has
splendid Broadway chops and, now that she is no longer an opera star,
really should be doing operettas on Broadway ... except, oops, it's no
longer the 1930s or even the 1950s, is it? - anyway, her "Thou Swell"
with David Garrison and "Why Can't I?" with Audra would alone be worth
the price). Lee Wiley did half a dozen R&H sides, mostly unusual stuff
- all of it perfect - but especially "A ****p Without A Sail" and "You
Took Advantage Of Me."
Elsewhither, having recently had access to most of the Ben Bagley
collections and their horde of treasures (far too many of them
flustered with damned electric piano arrangements, but NOT ALL), I was
knocked all of a heap by Dorothy Loudon's "If I Were You" (a typical
Larry Hart joke song based on a feeling of being unloved - cf. Von
Stade's overblown version), Blossom Dearie's "A Lady Must Live" and "I
Can Do Wonders With You"), and there's a wonderful duet called "Try
Again Tomorrow."
Currently my favorite R&H songs (this changes a lot) are: "Wait Till
You See Her" (from By Jupiter), "You Have Cast Your Shadow On The
Sea" (from the flawless score of The Boys from Syracuse), "I Wish I
Were In Love Again" (from the almost flawless score of Babes in Arms),
"Way Out West on West End Avenue" (ditto), "It Never Entered My
Mind" (Higher & Higher - how can such a perfect song come from a
flop?), "This Is My Night To Howl" (Connecticut Yankee, which also
produced "Thou Swell," "My Heart Stood Still," and "Won't You Do A
Friend A Favor"), "You're Nearer," "Like A ****p Without A Sail," "Why
Can't I?", "Mountain Greenery," "If I Were You" and "Too Good for the
Average Man" (which is probably my motto for the whole Hart oeuvre).
I've always wanted to sing "Give It Back To The Indians" at a pagan
gathering, ideally when my friend Thundercloud, the Lakota shaman of
Seattle, was present. Major un-PC.
And I don't just like Larry for things like:
"I like a prize fight that isn't a fake/ I like the rowing on Central
Park Lake/ I go to opera and stay wide awake" or (same song, but it's
my motto:)
"I'm all alone when I lower my lamp" - ooh, can't you feel those L's
hissing?
or "Now you're gone I lack myself/ Now I even have to scratch my back
myself"
(which I have filked to: "Since you've gone I kick myself/ Now I even
have to suck my dick myself")
or "Only my book in bed/ Knows how I look in bed/ I only mean to
imply/ Everybody has someone - why can't I?
"If love means merriment/ I should experiment/ With an electrical guy/
Even old maids find a burglar - why can't I?"
or "The shortest day of the year has the longest night of the year,
and the longest night is the shortest night with you"
or even "Half the time he is seeking/ Words to get off his chest/
Horizontally speaking/ He's at his very best"
- what I really love are the lines that hold back on the punchline
till the last line or the last word.
"Wait Till You See Her" - a perfect love song (and Larry cleverly put
the pronouns where they would not rhyme, so it can be sung about a
"him" or a "her" with equal grace) - and an epigram: Wait Till You See
Her/Him ... followed by all the amazing comparisons you could like,
but ending: When you see her/him ... you won't believe your eyes."
or "He Was Too Good To Me," about a breakup, listing all the things he
did for her, and ending, "Is it a wonder I'm blue? ... He was too
good ... to be true."
That is to say: Hart (like all the greatest American lyricists, down
to the last of the noble line, Mr. Sondheim and the late Mr. Ebb)
could take a demotic clich=E9 hanging on the line out to dry and turn it
into a witticism, a musical witticism: spare, elegant, poetic but not
highfalutin, the poesy of the man and woman in the street. The man and
woman dancing in the street.
p.s. for those interested:
"If I were you - Here's what I'd do -
I'd tell me that I really loved me.
I wouldn't hide it - I'd just confide it -
I'd pet me and let me pet you -
I'd feel oh so tender sitting on my knee
And with sweet surrender I'd give in to me
Gosh you ought to see
I'd hold me closer - I'd kiss me too -
I'd do that if I were you."
(but you have to hear the way Dorothy sang it - NOT the way Flicka
sings it.)
What's YOUR (current or all-time) favorite R&H song?
Jean Coeur de Lapin
Cafeteria Rusticana, a blog of the arts
http://hanslick.blogspot.com/
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