| | IN WHICH
The Author is Intrigued
"This Irving Berlin fellow seems to have come up a bit of a cropper here, Jeeves."
Flipping through radio stations on my way home, I happened to catch a song with which we are all most likely familiar. First written in 1929 by Irving Berlin, "Puttin' on the Ritz" was performed a year later in a film of the same name starring Harry Richman. CLIP If you look on Wikipedia, you'll note that after the film came out, Berlin changed the lyrics to make the song apply to the well-dressed cream of society. If you listen to Harry Richman sing it in the clip above, and then listen to Fred Astaire in this CLIP, you'll hear the difference. In both cases, the reference is to well-dressed folk, be it on Lennox Avenue (the poor Harlemites) or Park Avenue (the rich folk); but in the former version, if you think about it, the phrase "putting on the Ritz" takes on an almost sarcastic sense - that is, it gives the impression of the poor affecting a rich lifestyle, as opposed to the wealthy flaunting a real one. I doubt there's some serious social comment trying to be made in the two versions of this song (except of course to note in the present day that back then being rich was still the hot thing, and being poor put you in a very low class, hence the sarcasm), but that's how the lyrics evolved anyway.
Original version
Revised version
If you watched the Jeeves and Wooster clip on the top, you'll notice
that Bertie Wooster mixes the versions when he sings "where fashion
sits", but the bit about spangled gowns and misfits is from the older
version.
Ever since its publishing, the song has been covered and recovered by such artists as Benny Goodman, Ella Fitzgerald, Clark Gable (where he uses the old lyrics - political correctness didn't appear until forty years later), as well as the aforementioned Fred Astaire; it has also appeared in other films, such as the somewhat less reputable Gene Wilder film Young Frankenstein; and has been sung by less well-known artists in modern times - including the version I heard on the radio this afternoon, by a one-hit wonder who called himself Taco. You can watch the VIDEO if you like, but if you have impressionable children, I recommend parental discretion: the video was made in 1983; and like most 1980s-era music videos, it's very weird and somewhat creepy. The cool thing about the video, though, is that despite the words, which are the new ones referring to the upper-class, the video takes place in a back alley, as if giving credit to the original version. I still like the classic versions better, needless to say. Nevertheless, it's a tribute to Irving Berlin that his song has remained so popular for eighty years - enough so that people won't stop singing it.
Well. So much for the media trivia. I hope I didn't ruin a good song for you. If I did (or if I didn't), you can pretend I didn't say it, and turn your attention to THIS instead, while we're on the topic of the golden age of media - and also of baseball, because baseball ties into everything, and needs no segue. Opening season was yesterday, despite its insistence on opening in Japan (of all the nerve), and thus it is time once again to tune in on the old red Packard Bell, and cheer along for the Seattle-ite underdog. Happy New Year, everyone!
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| | Posted 3/31/2008 7:49 PM - 2 comments
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