Monday, August 22, 2016

"Broadway Memoreis (An Audial Remembrance)"

I am away, leaving Broadway musical gems for your appreciation.  I hope you enjoy them.

I recall hearing the asserted belief that audiences were unwilling to watch black-and-white movies on television, leading to colorization, and the banning of black-and-white classics from the airwaves.

I am attacking a similar prejudice today.

I am appropriating a visual medium,

And am offering...

A record.

"You mean there's nothing to look at?"

That's right.  You just listen.  Can you handle it?

"I guess so."

The following song comes from Fiorello!, incidentally, the first show I ever saw personally on Broadway.  (And they had a character named "Mrs. Pomerantz" in the cast.  Can you believe it?)

Fiorello! is the musical biography of Fiorello H. La Guardia, the legendary Mayor of New York.  At one point in the story, La Guardia runs for Congress as the Republican candidate, bashing the corrupt "Tammany Hall", which has a controlling stranglehold local Republican party.

Triggering the post-mortem commiseration, in which depressed political power brokers lament the inexplicable reality that...

"The Bum Won."

"The Bum Won" is a rare example of satirical lyric-writing in a Broadway musical.  I draw one line in particular to your attention.  The line goes:

"People can do what they want to but I got a feeling it ain't democratic."

That line is why I am featuring the entire song today.

So you can hear it.

Though is nothing visual for you to look at.  You going to be okay with that?

"Will you be doing it again?"

 I might.

"Then we may as well get used to it."

That's the spirit!

Ladies and gentlemen,

"The Bum Won."

(They're going to make you watch it on YouTube.  Do it.  It's worth it.)


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