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Decent Quality Since 1847

What a Way to Go

7/4/2014

2 Comments

 
I thought this would be a proper song to post on the Fourth of July.

The song is from Mr. President, which was the last musical that Irving Berlin wrote.  It starred film actor Robert Ryan, Nanette Fabray, and featured a young Anita Gillette who most recently played Tina Fey's mother several times in 30 Rock.  

The musical basically centers on the personal life of the president and his family, with a smattering of politics thrown in.  The book is by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, who among many other shows, from the book for 
The Sound of Music.  So the pedigree was certainly strong.

The show opened in 1962, but got only mediocre reviews.  It didn't have a great run, but was semi-respectable with 265 performances.  The book was considered a bit old-fashioned, as was the score which isn't particularly distinguished, though does have a handful of wonderful numbers, most notably "They Love Me" sung by Nanette Fabray as the First Lady, and "The Secret Service" (Makes Me Nervous) sung by Ms. Gilette as their daughter. And this song below, that Ryan sings at the end of the show.
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It's not that I think this song is great.  It's simple and short, but effective, and does wonderfully what Irving Berlin did so well.  Which is the point here.

The song is the last song in the show.  And this is the last show that Irving Berlin wrote.  And the last words are about as quintessential Irving Berlin as perhaps any words could be.  I don't know if this is the last song he wrote for the show -- I doubt it.  But it's the last original Irving Berlin song ever performed on Broadway.  And that's what I love so much about it: if you had to pick the last words of the last song of the last show that Irving Berlin wrote -- the man who wrote such grandly, heart-on-your-sleeve patriotic songs as "God Bless America" and "Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor" and "This is the Army, Mr. Jones" (not to mention "I Like Ike" and "Miss Liberty" and more) -- this is how you'd want to go out.

This song is "This is a Great Country."  And the last words are...oh, you'll hear them.  Hey, it's the Fourth of July.  You deserve the fireworks.

This, folks, is how you make an exit.
2 Comments
R-M
8/12/2014 03:27:11 am

Hi -- a new reader here (thanks to Mark Evanier), so I’m a bit late in commenting. Just to point out that the last song Berlin specifically wrote for Broadway was "An Old-Fashioned Wedding" for the 1966 Lincoln Center revival of Annie Get Your Gun. Several YouTube versions are available, some of them very good, which is only proper as I feel that this particular song a fitting coda to Berlin’s very long and illustrious career. Mind you, he had written several songs for an Arthur Freed film, Say It with Music, which never was produced -- thanks to M-G-M imploding in the 1960s. However, those who heard the new songs thought that they were very much above Berlin’s late standards. Sadly, they appear to have been left permanently in the Berlin family vaults...

Reply
Robert Elisberg
8/12/2014 07:49:45 am

R-M, thanks for your note, and welcome...though I know most any website is a comedown after Mark Evanier's...

You're 100% right about the revival of "Annie Get Your Gun." The perspective I had in mind was about "This is a Great Country" being the last original Irving Berlin Song from a new show, but that's not what I wrote. So, I appreciate you catching it, and I may have had a lapse on "Old Fashioned Wedding," anyway.

I know the song, though, and you're right that it's a very fitting coda in its own way, as well. A counter-point number in the vein of Berlin classics like "You're Just in Love" and "Play a Simple Melody."

I wasn't aware of other new songs for "Say It With Music." It's a shame that those appear to be lost. Well...perhaps one day they'll surface.

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    Author

    Robert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. 

    Elisberg is a two-time recipient of the Lucille Ball Award for comedy screenwriting. He's written for film, TV, the stage, and two best-selling novels, is a regular columnist for the Writers Guild of America and was for
    the Huffington Post.  Among his other writing, he has a long-time column on technology (which he sometimes understands), and co-wrote a book on world travel.  As a lyricist, he is a member of ASCAP, and has contributed to numerous publications.



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