bostonman

It has never made any sense to me when men sing "The Lady Is A Tramp." A man calling a woman a tramp, in any situation, is sexually vulgar even to a small degree. The context of the song originally (and which can be made obvious even outside the show) is that the woman singing is having self-deprecating fun with her simple lower class behavior - though really she's poking fun at folks in high society who behave just a little too stiff for their own good, and who would look down at someone like her for acting less highbrow. And along with that, if the woman sings the song in the first person, as Hart wrote it ("I get too hungry for dinner at eight" etc) the self-deprecating humor comes through - whereas when a man (or perhaps even a woman) sings it in 3rd person ("SHE gets too hungry" etc) it just alters the feel of the lyric in general. A huge difference between one deliberately making fun of oneself, versus calling someone else a tramp. Even when someone as lyric-aware as Sinatra sings it, IMO, the lyrics just don't work. It changes the meaning of "tramp," intentionally or not, from someone "lower class" to someone who's a "slut." I don't know for sure that Hart ever heard any men perform the song (the big male entertainers seemed to pick it up in the 50's and later, after Hart had passed away), but I tend to wonder if he would have liked it, or if he too had thought it didn't translate right. Even when many popular standards were easily sung by either gender.

Well - to each his own. I can't think of one number in that revue that I found "incredibly boring." But you just don't like musicals, clearly. And I think you doth protest too much.

This song was right at the edge of the end of disco (1982), so it squeaks in. I'm also including it because at the time it came out, I was just coming out, and I even remember dancing to this at a few clubs and gay pride celebrations. So it has a lot of emotional resonance for me. I also happen to really like the song.

Possibly the best (and I mean that) disco cover of a Broadway song: (I really do think this arrangement is quite clever and well-done. Including the sound effects stolen from the show itself.)

More Joni Mitchell. Hers was the first recording of this song that I heard - then I went on to discover the brilliance of its originators. Also fun that Mitchell gets a few lyrics totally wrong, having misheard them without realizing ("They all laughed at angry young men" instead of the original - a homage to the Gershwins - "They all laughed at A. Graham Bell." Also - "the idiomatic logic" instead of "the reasoning and the logic" - and "oh, they used to laugh at me" instead of "soldiers let them laugh at me.") Vocalese - the jazz term for taking an instrumental solo (often an improvised one) and fitting a lyric to it. The original vocal, as written and sung by Annie Ross: The more classic Annie Ross version, when she was a part of the amazing Lambert Hendricks and Ross vocal trio. And, of course, the original original - the sax instrumental by Wardell Gray.

I like Justin, and have known several guys by that name, but somehow I tend to associate the name with Randy Harrison's character on Queer As Folk lol. (And that's a good example, for me at least, of a sexy Justin. ) There were 3 boys (2 in the neighborhood, one a school friend) who contributed to my first bits of gay sexual awakening - Brendan, Tim, and Jay. All 3 of those names hold a special place for me. Of the 3, the name "Tim" tends to affect me the most, but I mentioned all this because of the name "Jay."

That's very true, and probably a valid subject for a whole thread by itself. I definitely feel that names often have a degree of sexiness (or not) in them - and of course many times that may be because of associations we make with those names. I've always thought that Kevin is a very hot name, probably partly because I knew some very sexy guys by that name growing up. But there are a lot of names on my "hot" list lol. (And I do confess that "Mike" is one of them lol.)

I tend to think that a 6'6" muscle guy can call me whatever he wants, if we're getting down to it.

How about "papi" - I happen to love it! But not "daddy"! I'm not a fan of being called "Daddy" either. I don't love "Papi" but I'll deal, lol. I often wind up dealing with gypsy cabs to get home from the supermarket, etc - most of them are Latino and they tend to try to get my attention with "hey, papi" - so by now I'm used to it lol. For a short time in elementary school, I remember some of the kids calling me "Fin" - not so much related to anything having to do with fish, lol, more that it's tangentially sort of part of my first name, sorta. Though I have no idea how that started. But it was meant as a cool thing, not a teasing thing. Anyway, what I really remember is Spanish class, where the teacher would show a short film or filmstrip (remember filmstrips, lol?) and invariably it would say "Fin" at the end. And the class would start shouting my nickname. Very silly.

Some years ago, doing a summer theatre youth program, I had an actor named Marco Jo Clate on the student list. Well - you already guessed it - Marco was female. Not only that, but given the first name, I somehow figured that the last name would be Latino or Italian, pronounced "Clah-tay." Guess again. The name rhymed with "great." One never knows... Very nice girl, by the way. She wound up playing the Streetsinger in Threepenny Opera - which ironically, is usually a male role.

My parents gave me and my brother the same initials - in case we ever had monogrammed stuff to share or to pass down. We never did, and still don't.

The once love of my life (long story, though I think I've posted about him before) was Chris, but short for Christian. I've always thought that I'm not sure if could really ever date another Chris again, unless perhaps he was a Christopher and I could always call hum by his full name. (Actually, Christian was actually his middle name, but he never used his given first name.)

I most often go by the standard (quite normal) shortened version of my first name, though professionally (i.e. in printed programs, etc) I'll sometimes use the full thing. I also have a few friends, but very few, who will do the "-y" nickname for me. Which made for a funny story. I was in rehearsal for a show, with a cast of teens, but the director was one of my friends who would use the "-y" version of my name. But then some of the kids started using that name. And although I do go on a first-name basis, the nickname sounded strange - and I decided it wasn't really right for them to call me that. So, with an appreciative laugh, I said they couldn't. But - Epigonos - you remind me of a teacher I once had in school - well, Hebrew school to be exact. I think if I had known him as an adult, I might have liked him, but to us kids at the time, he seemed so very formal in his ways. (Very "old school," pun intended.) Anyway, he would ONLY refer to us by full first names. I seem to remember a classmate named Pam who hated that he called her "Pamela" and even said that no one ever calls her that. But he insisted that was her name...(he may have backed off on that after a while, I don't remember.)

Actually, the ORIGINAL Jobim recording of "Águas de Março" was this one, released in 1972, a year before the version on the "Matita Pereira" (or "Jobim") album that was linked above: BUT - many consider the duet version with Jobim and Elis Regina (from the "Elis & Tom" album) to be THE classic recording of the song (it's also the one I heard first, and the one that got me hooked on the song, and Jobim's music in general): And here's studio footage of that recording as well. And, a live performance. Jobim himself playing that 2-note flute riff at the top that signifies the call of the (mythical) "matita pereira" bird, which is mentioned in the song's lyric. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srfP2JlH6ls There are stories that there was a lot of tension during the making of the now classic "Elis & Tom" album - supposedly the 2 singers didn't much like each other, and Jobim was also upset that Elis Regina's husband (César Camargo Mariano) was hired to do the musical arrangements, in place of Jobim's usual arranger, Claus Ogerman. But, watching the two of them together in these videos, it does seem like they're having fun together. Especially in that wonderful part right near the end when they're literally trading suffixes of words back and forth.

I'm wondering if some of the issue is her link to her (ex) husband, Frank Wildhorn, and his music. His "popera" style is not to everyone's liking (IMO his tunes are often just fine, if not always inspired, but he settles for absolutely rotten lyric writing), and he has never had a true Broadway success - so if one doesn't like HIS work, one may disregard her by association. Similar situation to Brightman's link to Lloyd Webber, except that Eder is the real deal, while Brightman (IMO) has never really been anything all that special.

I'm wondering if some of the issue is her link to her (ex) husband, Frank Wildhorn, and his music. His "popera" style is not to everyone's liking (IMO his tunes are often just fine, if not always inspired, but he settles for absolutely rotten lyric writing), and he has never had a true Broadway success - so if one doesn't like HIS work, one may disregard her by association. Similar situation to Brightman's link to Lloyd Webber, except that Eder is the real deal, while Brightman (IMO) has never really been anything all that special.

Rodgers, by the way, detested "covers" of his own music - he didn't care at all for people re-arranging what he wrote. He even got into fights with his orchestrators when their work seemed to overshadow his. Not generally a nice man, from what I understand. A shame, considering his undeniably classic tunes, and his 60 years of writing.

And...Brian Davies (Rolf) went on to star in the original A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum. Lauri Peters (Liesl) went on to marry Jon Voight. Rodgers went on to try to write more shows, none of them successful. But even so, what an amazing career. (Same for Hammerstein, of course.)

His rates are "ask" (on Rentmen) - wondering what that translates to. ??

And of course, he also wrote "I Get A Kick Out Of You" for her, for the same show. The story goes that Porter was getting pissed off with latecomers, so in Anything Goes he went against the usual trend of starting the show with a chorus number, and opened with a short scene that culminated in "I Get A Kick." So that, if you wanted to hear Merman sing one of the show's biggest hits, you HAD to get to the show on time. Merman eventually demanded that the song get heard later in the show, so they snuck in a reprise toward the end of Act II. Very interesting to compare Merman's original 1934 recording of the song with the parallel recording of the star of the 1935 London cast, Jeanne Aubert. Quite different, lol. Also, here's Aubert with her co-star, Jack Whiting, singing "You're The Top."

They like you! They really like you!

Oh, this is certainly a separate conversation for a different thread - but opera singers in certain opera houses HAVE occasionally been miked. It's just that no one wants to admit it, lol. But yes - when on Broadway, do as the Broadway shows do, lol - I believe the 2002 Broadway production of the Baz Luhrmann Boheme, which did feature young bona fide opera singers - was also miked. (And also, the Ronstadt Pirates Of Penzance was miked - and not very well, as I remember my experience seeing it - but that's a different story IMO. And despite the primitive miking, what a wonderful production!)

I think I saw that.

Some years back, I somehow settled on "take care" as an exit greeting - but the actual implication that I'm hoping the person to whom I'm saying goodbye actually takes care of themselves isn't the point. One also has to wonder how many people who avoid any undue talk of religion and/or who don't like to say "god" in casual conversation (taking the lord's name in vain) also have no problem saying "goodbye" (i.e. god be with you") either because they just don't think about it or that they know it doesn't really mean what it used to mean. On a similar note, I remember a story from years ago where a woman (a receptionist, I think) was fired from her job because she would end conversations with "have a blessed day." But I do have to wonder how many of the people who complained about her "pushing religion on people" also automatically said "bless you" as a default when someone sneezed. The problem is that "bless you" has become benign and meaningless as a phrase, even though it is short for "GOD bless you" (which some people also say in that context). Gesundheit - which literally means health ("to your health" is implied, of course) - is probably a safer way to go, lol. Words can sometimes lose their meaning the more we use them in repetition. One of my goals in being a vocal coach with theatre students and professionals is to make sure that the words that are sung have actual meaning behind them. Often, people performing a song are doing it by rote repetition, and aren't truly thinking about communicating the lyric - but the mark of a good singing actor is to remember that expressing the words is crucial. (This, William, is why I notice when I hear great professionals sing wrong lyrics, lol.) I often make a comparison to things we've learned to recite in our youth, like the Pledge of Allegiance, or the Lord's Prayer, etc. Many of us grew up reciting such things almost every day. Do we ever really think about the meaning of those phrases, or do they just become a pattern? I think most of us would agree it's the latter. (And a shout-out to my mother, though she doesn't read this board, lol - who told me that when she was a kid, she thought the "of thee I sing" lyric in "My Country 'Tis Of Thee," sung every morning when she was in school, was really "of T-I-C" - because that was one of the local radio/TV stations. )