A memorable tune from the Great American Songbook
During a recent visit to New York I kept being reminded of this song with its resonant names and places 'The Bronx and Staten Island'....'Coney and eat Baloney'...and 'Yonkers'.
In 1925 in at the height of the ‘Roaring Twenties’ Lorenz Hart wrote the lyrics and Richard Rogers the music for the song which projected Rogers and Hart into fame and fortune.
The introduction sees a young couple deciding to have their honeymoon at home.
Summer
journeys to Niag’ra
And to other places aggra-
Vate all our cares
We'll save our fares!
I've
a cozy little flat in
What is known as old Manhattan
We'll settle down
Right here in town!
Although the
economy was booming – it seems not everyone was benefitting from the meteoric
rise in the stock market. In particular making money in musical theatre was touch
and go. In fact just before this song took off Lorenz Hart was so broke he was
considering quitting showbiz and instead going to work in the clothing industry.
Getting a
hit
The way things worked
in those days writers aimed to get a song included in an existing musical and
then if it became an established hit they could then be said to have ‘made it’.
The night Manhattan
was first performed was at a benefit review called Garrick Gaieties.
This was to raise money for curtains for the Theatre Guild's [1] new theatre.
Halfway through
the matinee's second act, Holloway and Cochran performed the song Manhattan in front of a
plain curtain.
It stopped
the show.
Some reports say
that the audience demanded 10 encores and were heard singing it as they left.
That was the turning point.
Rogers and Hart’s partnership lasted from 1919 until Hart's early death in 1943. During that time
they worked together on 28 stage musicals and over 500 songs.
Who has sung
Manhattan?
It has been performed by the Supremes, Oscar Peterson, Blossom Dearie, Dinah Washington, and Mel Torme, among many others. It is often known as "We'll Have Manhattan" based on the opening line.
YouTube - Manhattan: Ella Fitzgerald
What is so special
about the song?
It’s the inventiveness and humour of the lyrics. A New York audience would be in the know about the names of parts of town which are not high falutin’ or top class – but instead tough and buzzing with grit and life.
The joke is that these "delights" are really some of the worst, or cheapest, sights that New York has to offer.
The humid smell of the subway in summertime is described as "balmy breezes".
On Mott Street the lovely carts are "gliding by". In reality Mott Street runs North - South from Bleecker Street through the frantic bustle of China Town to Chatham Square.
In the second verse, they go for a walk down Delancey Street, which was in the 1920s a boisterous commercial strip, part of the Jewish working-class Lower East Side – the place where garments were made.
A love song
to New York
It also paints a picture of a romantic interlude – a honeymoon close to home.
A particular Hart delight is the use of a strong New York dialect to rhyme "spoil" with "boy and goil".
It's a great example of New York warmth and wit.
And of course the whole jaunt will turn Manhattan into an isle of joy!
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NOTES
[1] The Theatre Guild was
founded in New York in 1918
Its purpose was
to produce non-commercial works and its board of directors shared the
responsibility of choosing plays, management, and production. The Theatre
Guild contributed greatly to the success of Broadway from the 1920s
throughout the 1970s.
The Guild
produced a total of 228 plays on Broadway, including 18 by George Bernard
Shaw and seven by Eugene O'Neill.
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Manhattan
– the lyrics
Summer journeys to Niagara
And to other places aggra-
Vate all our cares
We'll save our fares!
I've a cozy little flat in
What is known as old Manhattan
We'll settle down
Right here in town!
We'll have Manhattan
The Bronx and Staten
Island too
It's lovely going through
The zoo
It's very fancy
On old Delancey
Street you know
The subway charms us so
When balmy breezes blow
To and fro
And
tell me what street
Compares with Mott Street
In
July?
Sweet pushcarts gently gli-
Ding
by
The great big city's a wondrous toy
Just made for a girl and boy
We'll turn Manhattan
Into an isle of joy!
We'll go to
Yonkers
Where true love conquers
In the wild
And starve together dear
In Childs
We'll go to Coney
And eat baloney
On a roll
In Central Park we'll stroll
Where our first kiss we stole
Soul to soul
And "My
Fair Lady"
Is a terrific show they say
We both may see it close
Some day
The city's glamour can never spoil
The dreams of a boy and goil
We'll turn Manhattan
Into an isle of joy!
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More on the
Lyrics
There at
least two other stanzas – and there are probably more.
We'll go to
Greenwich,
Where modern men itch
To be free,
And Bowling Green you'll see with me.
We'll bathe at Brighton,
The fish you'll frighten
When you're in,
Your bathing suit so thin
Will make the shellfish grin,
Fin to fin.
I'd like to take a
Sail on Jamaica
Bay with you,
And fair Canarsie's Lakes we'll view.
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The reference
to the show ‘My Fair Lady’ is from the original 1925 version but when other
shows were on such as ‘South Pacific’ –
these were included instead.
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Lorenz Hart was born in Harlem - the son of German Jewish immigrants. Before getting the break with Rogers he had been employed to translate German songs into English. Through his mother, he was a great-grandnephew of the German poet Heinrich Heine.
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