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®
HCD 1901 Harbinger Records Ltd.
HAL
CAZALET
&MSYLVIA
cNAIR
THE LAND WHERE THE GOOD SONGS GO
THE LYRICS OF
P.G. WODEHOUSE
W I T H
S T E V E N
B L I E R
O N
P I A N O
1.
2.
Oh, Gee! Oh, Joy!
You Can’t Make Love By
Wireless 2:44
1:59
Hal Cazalet and Sylvia McNair
Music by George Gershwin
Lyrics by Ira Gershwin and P.G. Wodehouse
From the American musical Rosalie (1928)
9.
Tell Me All Your
Troubles, Cutie 3:34
10. Bill
Music by Jerome Kern
From the American musical Miss 1917 (1917)
From the British musical The Beauty Prize (1923)
3:28
Lara Cazalet
Cut from the American musical Oh, Lady! Lady!! (1918)
11. You Never Knew About Me
3.
You’re the Top
4.
Rolled Into One
3:11
Sylvia McNair
From the American musical Oh, Boy! (1917)
12. Shimmy with Me
5.
Sir Galahad
3:00
From the American musical Leave It to Jane (1917)
13. Non-Stop Dancing
6.
The Land Where the
Good Songs Go 4:18
14. My Castle in the Air
3:58
Music by Cole Porter
Lyrics by Cole Porter and P.G. Wodehouse
From the British musical Anything Goes (1935)
Hal Cazalet
7.
If I EVER Lost You
8.
Go Little Boat 2:54
Sylvia McNair
3:26
Music by Ivor Novello
From the British musical The Golden Moth (1921)
2:54
Lyrics by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse
From the American musical Oh, Boy! (1917)
2:55
Sylvia McNair
From the British musical The Cabaret Girl (1922)
2:23
From the British musical The Beauty Prize (1923)
3:11
Hal Cazalet
From the American musical Miss Springtime (1917)
15. The Enchanted Train
3:09
From the American musical Sitting Pretty (1924)
16. Anything Goes
3:58
Music by Cole Porter
Lyrics by Cole Porter and P.G. Wodehouse
From the British musical Anything Goes (1935)
Total time 51:12
ANYTHING GOES
Times have changed
And we’ve often rewound the clock
Since the Puritans got a shock
When they landed on Plymouth Rock.
If today
Any shock they should try to stem
’Stead of landing on Plymouth Rock,
Plymouth Rock would land on them.
In olden days, a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking
But now, Lord knows,
Anything goes.
Good authors, too,
Who once knew better words
Now only use four-letter words
Writing prose,
Anything goes.
If driving fast cars you like,
If low bars you like,
If bare limbs you like,
If old hymns you like,
If Mae West you like,
Or me undressed you like,
Why nobody will oppose.
When ev’ry night the set that’s smart
Is indulging in nudist parties
In studios,
Anything goes.
When maiden aunts can freely chuckle
At tales much too near the knuckle,
The facts disclose
Anything goes.
When in the house our legislators
Are calling each other ‘traitors’
And ‘So-and-Sos’,
Anything goes.
The world’s in a state today,
Like Billingsgate today.
We are each today for free speech today.
Nothing’s blue today or taboo today,
Or meets with scandalized ‘Oh’s’.
But while we hope for days more sunny
The Government gets our money
‘Cause Neville knows,
Anything goes.
When grandmamma, whose age is
eighty,
In nightclubs is getting matey
With gigolos,
Anything goes.
When mothers pack and leave poor
father
Because they decide they’d rather
Be tennis pros,
Anything goes.
The world has gone mad today
And good’s bad today,
And black’s white today,
And day’s night today.
In Colney Hatch today
We ought to snatch today
A little rest and repose.
When ladies fair who seek affection
Prefer gents of dark complexion
As Romeos,
Anything goes.
The dogs chase fleas,
The bees chase honey,
And we are all chasing money.
And when it shows,
Anything goes.
The Duke who owns a moated castle
Takes lodgers and makes a parcel
Because he knows
Anything goes.
It’s grab and smash today,
We want cash today,
Get rich quick today,
That’s the trick today.
And the Great today
Don’t hesitate today,
But keep right on their toes.
And lend their names, if paid to do it,
To anyone’s soap or suet
Or baby clo’s.
Anything goes.
“Plum” Wodehouse at work
PHOTOS BY DAVID LASNET
The curate’s got a spavin and has since
been quite lame.
All day long the pianola plays:
Grandma’s worn out fourteen pairs of
stays.
Father pluckily continues
Though he’s sprained eleven sinews
Since we got the non-stop dancing craze.
Since we got the non-stop dancing craze
We’ve quite altered our domestic ways.
Grandpapa, although he wheezes, knows
how to step;
He shakes the old Waukeesis with
abandon and pep.
With Aunt Mary Uncle Percy sways,
Father hasn’t slept for seven days.
We’re insured, for that’s essential,
With the man from the Prudential
MY CASTLE IN THE AIR
I’ve a wondrous castle that I’ve never
lived in yet,
Built so many years ago in days that I
forget.
It has no stone battlements and great big
wooden beams.
Its walls and its bars are the dust of the
stars,
And its gate the gate of dreams.
REFRAIN
Come out there for a visit;
I’ve lots of room for friends.
And if you ask where is it,
It’s where the rainbow ends.
It’s somewhere there in Fairyland,
Where there’s never cloud or care.
We’ll have joy and laughter, mirth and song,
And we’ll all be happy as the day is long
In the shelter of my castle,
Of my castle in the air.
Ev’rything is perfect that you’ll find
there when you go,
Just beyond the milky way and where
the moonbeams grow.
No one ever worries there, for ev’rything
goes right.
The sky’s always blue and no lover’s untrue,
And your life’s one long delight.
Refrain
THE ENCHANTED TRAIN
There’s a train that pulls out in the
twilight;
Quite the best on the list of all trains
that exist
For it brings the commuters home.
When the stars up above shed their
shy light,
Happy men come again
Back to fair Flushing (Main),
Auburndale, Little Neck, Plandome.
Every day, if you are that way
When shades of night are falling,
You can hear gentle voices a-calling,
“All aboard, please! All aboard, please!
All aboard, all aboard.”
Dear magic train that brings you home
again,
How I shall wish it could fly!
How shall I worry and want it to hurry
And stare at the clock as the minutes
crawl by!
Down at the gate I shall listen and wait,
Oh! How excited I’ll be!
And how I’ll cheer it each night when I
hear it
Bringing you back to me!
It’s quite a humble train, you know,
And some folks grumble that it’s slow.
It stops to ponder now and then —
The air inside needs oxygen.
It’s not like some trains known to fame,
But it’s enchanted just the same.
It bumps as though the wheels were flat
It rattles, too, but what of that?
Every bump and every jump
Seem but to whisper clearer,
“Getting near, getting near, getting nearer!
Soon be home now! Soon be home now!
Soon be home! Soon be home!”
Dear magic train, hear it sing that refrain:
“Near, getting near, getting near!
But while I’m in it I’ll feel that each
minute
Is just about six times as long as a year.
If cruel fate made me one second late,
Goodness knows what I would do.
No train could be quick enough to suit me
When I’m coming back to you.
Introduced by Tim Rice
1917 And ALL THAT
I am, I hope, a fairly modest cove (most theater critics have made
it clear I have plenty to be modest about), but I must admit I felt
fairly gruntled when, in 2000, I could briefly brag about having
my lyrics on Broadway in no less than four shows at the same time
– The Lion King, Aida, Beauty and the Beast and a revival of Jesus
Christ Superstar. Surely this must be a record, I reckoned – certainly
for a British lyricist. But I now know I was wrong.
I assure readers that I only mention my awesome foursome here
and now because of its relevance to this magnificent album that
pays tribute to one of my literary heroes, P.G.Wodehouse. For the
mighty Plum, that brilliant “performing flea” (to use his own selfeffacing description of himself ), a lyricist, and British to boot, in
1917 had five shows running simultaneously on Broadway. I only
discovered this fact when I read Tony Ring’s fascinating essay that
accompanies this recording, and it put me deservedly in my place.
My parents had been Wodehouse lovers since their young days, and
in the circumstances, I was a little slow on the P.G. uptake – maybe
I was slightly put off by their insistence that Wodehouse was a great
writer by any standards, not just a great comic writer. I now know
that claim to be absolutely justified, even though I did not read my
first Wodehouse novel until I was 26, and sitting in the back of a
jumbo on my first trip to America. The novel was Joy in the
Morning and I was hooked. Before I was back in the U.K. 10 days
later, I had read three more Jeeves books.
As my Wodehouse library expanded exponentially over the next
three decades, I still remained largely ignorant about the second
great string to his bow – his lyric writing. I suppose it was
inevitable that his towering stature as a novelist would eventually
overshadow his lyrical reputation, but this was quite a reputation,
as Tony Ring’s notes make crystal clear. After all, if Shakespeare had
Sylvia McNair
Two-time Grammy Award winner
Sylvia McNair has established
herself as one of the world’s most
sought-after singers of classical
music and popular song. In 19
years as a professional singer,
she has made over 70 records for
nearly every classical label, and
her discography includes eight
solo albums and a myriad of opera
and orchestral works for voice.
In concert, Sylvia has sung with
practically every major orchestra
in the world, with repertoire
ranging from Baroque to Mozart,
Rossini, and Britten to Gershwin,
working with conductors such as
Kurt Masur, John Eliot-Gardiner,
André Previn and James Levine.
Sylvia made her operatic debuts at
the San Francisco Opera as Tytania
in A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
and Marzelline in Fidelio at the
Metropolitan Opera in New York.
She has also appeared as Pamina
in The Magic Flute at the Met and
the Deutsch Opera Berlin. She has
also appeared with the Vienna
State Opera, the Glyndebourne
Festival Opera, the Royal Opera
House Covent Garden and the
Salzburg Festival.
Sylvia is an active pioneer in the
promotion of new music, and over
the past year, she has been honored
by Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center
Chamber Music Society and the
New York Philharmonic where
world-premiere pieces have been
commissioned for her to perform.
Her work in the world of popular
song has received accolades across
America and Europe. She is a
regular soloist for both the
Hollywood Bowl and Chicago
Symphony Orchestra, performing
2
been the first chap to row the Atlantic single-handed a few years
before turning out Hamlet and King Lear, he would still be thought
of first and foremost as a pretty good playwright.
I had the great honor of meeting P.G. Wodehouse when Andrew
Lloyd Webber and I were attempting to write a musical based on a
Jeeves story. In 1973 we went together to see him at his Long
Island home. He was charm itself and seemed delighted and
encouraging about our project. Sad to say, it ended in tears as
I pulled out a few months later, very aware that I could not
match the humor of his prose with my lyrics. It was becoming
increasingly clear to me that all I was doing was making the master,
P.G.Wodehouse, seem unfunny – quite an achievement. To my
great relief, both P.G. and Guy Bolton, who had also been
involved, were very understanding when they received my letters
of resignation.
Now, of course, I appreciate just how important a lyricist
Wodehouse was (and is). Even if I hadn’t before, one listen to this
CD would have got the message home. What Sir Pelham (as he
became just in time) did for the musical theater still matters today,
and more important, still entertains today.
Tim Rice
London, April 2001
T
his album, which I hope today adds an additional bounce to
your stride, is the result of a chance exchange during a P.G.
Wodehouse Convention in Chicago a few years ago. Tony
Ring suggested I record an album of my great grandfather’s lyrics.
When I began to research his rather neglected career as an illustrious
song writer I quickly became convinced that this was a record that
should be made, particularly with the musicians I had in mind. My
exploration into this material has been somewhat of a revelation.
We’d have made mud pies like affinities.
We’d have known what rapture may be.
I’d have let you feed my rabbit
Till the thing became a habit, dear,
But I never knew about you.
(Ah! What might have been.)
And you never knew about me.
How I wish I’d known, dear, that one
day you’d arrive,
Just to feel I had an ideal for which to
strive.
Had I known I’d meet you, my own,
I would not have lived for pleasure
alone;
I was frivolous and gay, sad to say, when
I was five.
I never knew about you, dear,
I never missed chances
Of juvenile dances
For my life was one mad spree.
I was often kissed ‘neath the mistletoe
By small boys excited with tea.
If I’d known that you existed
I’d have scratched them and resisted, dear,
But I never knew about you.
(Oh! The pain of it.)
SHIMMY WITH ME
If you find you’re getting the hump,
If you are feeling blue;
If your nerves are all on the jump,
I’ll tell you what to do.
Just get up and shimmy awhile,
That is the thing for you;
You’ll find you can dig up a smile,
After a shake or two!
Shimmy with me
And I will shimmy with you;
You’ll find it’s easy to do.
I’ll see you through.
You’ll need a lesson or two,
Just at the start when it’s new.
If you’ve never shimmied,
Start learning now.
Don’t be shy or timid:
I’ll show you how.
It’s just a knack —
Wiggle your back.
Give a sort of shiver,
Then a kind of quiver.
Sway if you please,
Just like the trees in a breeze.
You’ll pick it up by degrees.
Once you begin,
You’ll shake right out of your skin:
Go in and win!
Shimmy from your shoulders
Down to your knee:
Give the dazed beholders
Something to see!
Start up the music and
Come out and shimmy with me!
Just try to feel
As if you’d swallowed an eel;
You’ll find that helps a good deal!
Once you begin,
You’ll shake right out of your skin:
Go in and win!
Shimmy from your shoulders
Down to your knee;
Give the dazed beholders
Something to see!
Start up the music and
Come out and shimmy with me!
NON-STOP DANCING
Our home life once used to be quiet —
Not a sign of bustle or riot;
Ev’rything quite peaceable and serene.
Ev’ry evening mother wrote letters,
Grandma knitted stockings and sweaters,
Father read the Parish Magazine.
Now you’ll find a different sort of scene.
We’ve quite altered our domestic ways.
Mother ev’ry ev’ning may be seen on the
floor,
And no-one’s fed the baby for a
fortnight or more.
We don’t ever go out nowadays,
Life just passes in a sort of haze.
Grandma’s feet are getting tender,
Father’s burst his sock suspender
Once the noise the tiniest mouse made
Could be heard; but now, when the
house-maid
Breaks the china, nobody hears a sound.
Grandma is an absolute wonder –
Tho’ her ankle’s buckling under,
She’ll beat all the girls for miles around;
Does you good to see her cover the
ground!
Life at home has changed in many ways.
Ev’ry night the friends we have in take
to the game;
15
YOU CAN’T MAKE LOVE BY
WIRELESS
Charles Augustus Chaytor,
Wireless operator,
Loved the fair
Golden hair’d
Bessie Magee.
She lived in Darjeeling
Avenue, West Ealing;
He was always out at sea.
Such was his devotion
That when on the ocean,
Ev’ry day
He’d relay
Greetings to Bess.
But I’m told that sometimes
There alas would come times
When he moaned this S O S:
You can’t make love by wireless;
It’s like bread without the jam.
There is nothing girls desire less
Than a cold Marconigram.
For it’s something you can’t speak to
From a someone you can’t see.
It’s like a village church that’s spireless,
Or a little home that’s fireless,
Or a motor car that’s tireless,
And it isn’t any good to me.
Mark the horrid sequel,
It is hard to equal;
Fate with grim
Tragic whim
Upset his dream.
For that maiden fickle
Wed a man from CrickleWood who kept a laundry (steam).
14
Charles, poor man, thus jilted,
Naturally wilted;
Soured he grew,
Gloomy, too,
Quite lost his smile.
Never more his jokes’ll
Entertain the fo’c’sle
He keeps mutt’ring all the while:
You can’t make love by wireless;
It’s like eggs without the ham.
There is nothing girls desire less
Than a cold Marconigram.
For it’s something you can’t speak to
From a someone you can’t see.
It’s like a village church that’s spireless,
Or a Selfridge’s that’s buyer less,
Or a Pekinese that’s sireless,
And it isn’t any good to me.
BILL
I used to dream that I would discover
The perfect lover some day.
I knew I’d recognize him,
If ever he came round my way.
I always used to fancy then
He’d be one of the God-like kind of men,
With a giant brain and a noble head
Like the heroes bold in the books I read.
But along came Bill
Who’s quite the opposite of all
The men in story books,
In grace and looks
I know that Apollo
Would beat him all hollow.
And I can’t explain,
It’s surely not his brain
That makes me thrill –
I love him because he’s wonderful,
Because he’s just old Bill!
He can’t play golf or tennis or polo,
Or sing a solo, or row.
He isn’t half as handsome
As dozens of men that I know.
He isn’t tall and straight and slim,
And he dresses far worse than Ted or Jim.
And I can’t explain why he should be
Just the one, one man in the world for me.
He’s just my Bill –
He has no gifts at all:
A motor car he cannot steer;
And it seems clear
Whenever he dances,
His partner takes chances.
Oh, I can’t explain,
It’s surely not his brain
That makes me thrill.
I love him because he’s – I don’t know –
Because he’s just my Bill.
YOU NEVER KNEW ABOUT ME
We were children once long ago, dear,
you and I.
At the start, our lives lay apart as lives
will lie.
Up I grew and I never knew
That the world contained a darling like you,
Nor did you dream you would see little
me, too, bye and bye.
I never knew about you, dear,
Life might have been Heaven
If I, then aged seven,
Had but met you when you were three.
I have felt rather like an archaeologist digging up treasures from a
distant past, as these songs in their time were not only the rage of
Broadway and the hits of the West End but also the songs that have
defined the 20th-century musical.
The songs on this record were chosen from a lyric perspective
without, at first, hearing the music. Our musical ensemble was
kept to a minimum to give the words clarity. Solos and duets are
accompanied by the piano, often with the addition of a banjo,
ukulele, cello or guitar to give a certain authentic feel and more
importantly to allow room for improvisation.
I remember Benny Green always said, “One day someone will start
to excavate Wodehouse’s lyrics and discover a gold mine.” I hope
this recording will do something to inspire others to perform my
great grandfather’s songs and that you have fun listening. The
surface has merely been scratched and many treasures lie beneath.
Let’s hope that one day soon Wodehouse’s musicals are revived on
Broadway and the West End, restoring the age when his lyrics
once reigned and theaters were named “the land where the good
songs go.”
the songs of Kern, Gershwin and
Sondheim among others. In 1998,
she was chosen as the soloist for
the New York Philharmonic
Gershwin Tribute, and went on
to record a Gershwin Songbook
with pianist Ted Taylor. She has
also recorded two popular albums
featuring the songs of Kern and
Arlen with pianist and conductor
André Previn.
Sylvia is a native of Mansfield,
Ohio and is 1999 the state
awarded her The Goveners Award
for outstanding acheivement in
the Arts and Entertainment.
Hal Cazalet
London, April 2001
The Land where THE
good songs go
“Had Wodehouse died in 1918, he would have been remembered
not as a British novelist but as the first great lyricist of the
American musical.”
Thus did Mark Steyn summarize the importance of Sir P.G.
Wodehouse as a musical comedy lyricist in his book Broadway
Babies Say Goodnight (Faber and Faber, 1997). To the contented
Hal Cazalet
In recent years Hal Cazalet’s
performances in opera, musicals
3
and modern theatrical works have
been divided between the USA and
the UK. After training at The
Guildhall School of Music and
Drama, he went to the Juilliard
Opera Center, where he won the
1995 Shoshana Foundation award.
His diverse theatrical experience
includes roles in the world premiere
and tour of Philip Glass’s Les Enfants
Terribles, the world premiere of
Roxanna Panufnik’s The Music
Programme at the Polish National
Opera, Warsaw and at The Linbury
Studio Theater, Royal Opera House
Covent Garden. Other credits
include the Corsaro/Sendak
production of The Love of Three
Oranges, The Threepenny
Opera, The Impresario and The
Beggars Opera.
Hal has performed in concert at
Lincoln Center and Weill Recital Hall
at Carnegie Hall and broadcast live
on WNYC Radio. Under conductor
John Eliot-Gardiner, he has toured
with the Monteverdi Choir.
Hal is also a composer/lyricist and
has written two musicals. His Street
4
millions who associate Wodehouse principally with the names of
Bertie Wooster and his supremely gifted valet, Jeeves, this may
come as something of a surprise. But the 300 short stories and 70
novels emanating from his pen by no means tell the whole story
about his prolific career.
Perhaps it is because he has been generally regarded as the 20th
century’s greatest humorous writer that all but a few cognoscenti
have ignored his other major achievement. During the eight years
from 1917 to 1924, he contributed lyrics to 19 musicals on
Broadway or in London, including 11 for which he wrote virtually
all. Indeed, in 1917, when he had five shows running simultaneously
on Broadway, it seemed that a musical was not a musical without
his involvement.
A New Art Form: The Birth of the Broadway Musical
In 1914 the Shubert brothers, owners of the tiny 299-seat Princess
Theater at 104 West 39th Street, NY, had a decision to make: sell
the theater or find a new use for it. They chose the latter route and
invited the renowned Bessie Marbury to make it work. She realized
that the house was too small for musical works such as operettas
with their large numbers of musicians and choruses. But she
thought it would be ideal for a more intimate form of musical
comedy with no more than two sets (compared to the 12 of the
operettas), a chorus of eight to 12 (compared to as many as 90) and
an orchestra of 11 (rather than 40). Contemporary stories would
mean inexpensive costuming; using relatively unknown composers
and librettists would also help to keep costs down; and the close
proximity of the racy chorus girls to the audience would bring in
the tired businessmen.
Wodehouse and Kern: ‘The inaugurators of the American musical’
(Alan Jay Lerner)
Jerome Kern, the pioneer of this new art form, was to compose
over a thousand songs during his career, including almost 200 with
Makes ev’ry woman jealous when she
sees her.”
Then someone else would yell, “Behave!
Thou malapert and scurvy knave!
Or I will smite thee one upon the beezer.”
And then next morning, if you please,
They’d dress in iron B.V.D.s,
And mount a pair of chargers highly
mettled.
And when Sir Claude so fair and young,
Got punctured in the leg or lung,
They looked upon the argument as
settled.
Refrain
THE LAND WHERE THE GOOD
SONGS GO
On the other side of the moon
Ever so far,
Beyond the last little star,
There’s a land, I know, where the good
songs go,
Where it’s always afternoon;
And snug in a haven of peace and rest,
Lie the dear old songs that we love
the best.
REFRAIN
It’s a land of flowers
And April showers
With sunshine in between,
With roses blowing and rivers flowing —
Mid rushes growing green;
Where no one hurries
And no one worries
And life runs calm and slow
And I wish some day I could find my way
To the land where the good songs go.
Dear old songs forgotten too soon:
They had their day,
And then we threw them away,
And without a sigh we would pass
them by,
For some other, newer tune.
So off to a happier home they flew,
Where they’re always loved and they’re
always new.
Refrain
IF I EVER LOST YOU
I have not known you long, and yet
It’s plain that this was meant to be.
For something told me when we met
That you were my affinity.
I cannot tell you what you mean to me.
Think how sad the flowers would be if
sunshine went away.
Think how sad the bees would feel
without a summer day.
Think how a couple of lovers would
swoon
If they walk’d out one night and found
no moon.
Then you’ll understand –
I hope that you do –
How I’d feel if
I ever lost you.
Think how sad a carrot would be
If no boil’d beef was near.
Think how sad an egg would feel
If ham should disappear
Think how a sausage’s hopes would
be dash’d
If one day it awoke and miss’d its mash’d.
And what grief a steak would feel
If it found that there wasn’t an onion
around.
GO LITTLE BOAT
Soft, softly as over the water we creep,
Winds seem to sigh.
Dark, dark is the night and the world
is asleep:
Wakeful am I.
Slow, slow though the river may flow,
Soon, soon I shall be
Safe, safe in the harbor, where someone
I know,
Waits for me.
Go, little boat, serenely gliding;
Over the silver water riding.
Naught but the stars I see, shining above:
Flow, river carry me to him I love.
Go, little boat, serenely gliding.
Love at the helm your course is guiding.
Fair winds to hasten you may fortune
send,
Till I come safe to journey’s end.
You have inflicted on my heart
A wound that time can never heal.
You woke in me right from the start
Emotions I cannot conceal.
Just let me sketch for you the way I feel.
13
You’re the boy I’d swipe for the perfect
type of male.
You’re an old Dutch master,
You’re Lady Astor,
You’re Chippendale.
You’re supreme – you’re the gates of
heaven.
You’re the cream from the shire of Devon.
I’m just in the way – as the French
would say, ‘de trop.’
But if, baby, I’m the bottom
You’re the top.
You’re the top – you’re a dress by Patou,
You’re the top – you’re an Epstein statoo.
You’re the nimble tread of the feet of
Fred Astaire.
You’re Mussolini,
You’re Mrs. Sweeney,
You’re camembert.
You’re the run of a film by Arliss,
You’re the sun on the Crystal Parliss,
I’m a lazy lout that’s just about to stop.
You’re the top.
You’re the top – you’re a Ritz hot toddy,
You’re the top – you’re a Rolls Royce body.
You’re the boats that glide on the sleepy
Zuider Zee.
You’re a bed of roses,
You’re Holy Moses,
You’re Jubilee.
You’re a prize – you’re the Hula Hula,
You’re the eyes of the fair Tallulah.
I’m a broken doll, a fol-de-rol, a blop.
You’re the top.
12
ROLLED INTO ONE
Though men think it strange
Girls should need a change
From their manly fascinations,
The fact is, this act is a thing we’re driven to.
You don’t have much fun,
If you stick to one;
Men have all such limitations.
Look round you: I’m bound you
Will find that this is true.
REFRAIN
At the op’ra I like to be with Freddie;
To a musical show,
I go with Joe.
I like to dance with Ted, and golf with
Dick or Ned,
And at the races and other lively places,
Sam and Eddie are fun.
But I’m pining
Till there comes in my direction
One combining
Ev’ry masculine perfection,
Who’ll be Eddie,
And Joe and Dick and Sam and Freddie,
And Neddie and Teddie
Rolled in one.
Ev’rywhere you go,
Men are useful, so
Just collect them when you find them.
Catch twenty,
That’s plenty,
I don’t think you need more.
If they say you flirt,
Don’t be feeling hurt,
That’s a way they have, don’t mind them.
They tell us they’re jealous,
But that’s what men are for.
Refrain
SIR GALAHAD
The days of chivalry are dead
Of which in stories we have read,
When knights were bold and acted
kind of scrappy:
When guys would take a lot of pains,
And fight all day to please the Janes;
And if their dame was tickled, they
was happy.
But now the men are mild and meek,
and seem to have a yellow streak:
They never lay for other gents, to
flatten ‘em;
They think they’ve done a darned
fine thing
If they just buy the girl a ring
Of imitation diamonds and platinum.
REFRAIN
It makes me sort o’ sad
To read about Sir Galahad,
Sir Lancelot, and all of them today:
To amuse a girl and charm ’er,
They would get into their armor,
And they’d jump into the fray.
They called her lady love,
They used to wear her little glove,
And ev’rything the girl said went:
For them was the days when a lady was
a lady
And a gent was a perfect gent.
Some night when they sat down to dine,
Sir Claude would say: “That girl of mine
Wodehouse lyrics. His vision of an integrated musical, in which the
book, lyrics and music worked together to enhance the piece, was
ideally suited to the intimacy of the Princess. Kern had already worked
with the librettist Guy Bolton, and the success of this new format was
assured when the pair linked up with Wodehouse in 1916.
They quickly earned recognition as the “trio of musical fame” who
were to establish a new concept of musical comedy in America.
Jerome Kern’s vision for song cues to change from the “useless,
unnecessary and glaringly inappropriate” to ones which “carry on
the action of the play and are representative of the personalities of
the characters who sing them” was brilliantly supported by the flair
of Wodehouse, a “lyrist” (Wodehouse’s own preferred description)
who could “produce literate, witty lines which worked effectively as
the counterpoint to Kern’s melodies and provided the desired
seemingly effortless transition from dialogue to song.”
Adopting these revolutionary techniques, Wodehouse, Bolton and
Kern became the pioneers who developed and defined the 20thcentury American musical. The overblown romance of highbrow
operetta gave way to new theatrical idioms which concentrated on
creating credible characters and dealing with real-life themes.
Wodehouse was quite prepared to write lyrics against convention,
and his “Bill” is a prime example. The lyric was originally written
for the 1917 show Oh, Lady! Lady!! and it described the leading
man as “ordinary,”giving him everyday qualities the audience could
identify with. But the song was dropped during the pre-Broadway
tryout for lack of credibility. Bill, played by a conventionally handsome actor, had already been seen by the audience and the contrast
between his appearance and his depiction in the lyric required the
song’s omission. “Bill” would later find its niche in the 1927 musical
Show Boat where, with minor changes to the lyric, it became an
emotional lament to a lost lover. A different objective for the song;
a different treatment.
People was performed at the
1989 Edinburgh Festival, and First
Night was presented at the 1996
Aspen Music Festival, Wheeler
Opera House (directed by Edward
Berkeley) and at the Juilliard
Opera Center (directed by
Frank Corsaro).
Steven Blier
Steven Blier is the co-founder
and co-artistic director of the
New York Festival of Song
(NYFOS). Since the Festival’s
inception in 1998, he has
programmed, performed,
translated and annotated over
70 vocal programs.
A champion of American music,
he has premiered works of John
5
Corigliano, Ned Rorem, William
Bolcom, John Musto, Richard
Danielpour, Tobias Picker and
Lee Hoiby, many of which were
commissioned by NYFOS.
His discography includes the
Grammy Award-winning premiere
recording of Leonard Bernstein’s
Arias and Barcarolles; NYFOS discs
of Blitzstein, Gershwin and German
Lieder; Gershwin’s Lady Be Good;
the songs of Charles Ives in
partnership with baritone William
Sharp; and first recordings of
music by Busoni and Borodin with
cellist Dorothy Lawson. In October
1999, New World Records issued
the Grammy-nominated premiere
recording of Ned Rorem’s
full-length song cycle Evidence of
Things Not Seen, commissioned by
NYFOS and the Library of Congress.
Among the many artists he has
partnered in recital are Cecilia
Bartoli, Renee Fleming, Samuel
Ramey, Lorraine Hunt, Susan
Graham, Frederica Von Stade,
Jessye Norman, Wolfgang Holzmair,
Susanne Mentzer, Dwayne Croft,
6
Wodehouse was a great admirer of W.S. Gilbert (1836-1911), but
whereas Gilbert wrote the lyrics for Sullivan to set to music, Kern
preferred to write the melody first.
Jerry generally did the melody first, and I put the words to it. W.S.
Gilbert always said that a lyricist can’t do decent stuff that way,
but I don’t agree with him — not as far as I’m concerned, anyway.
If I write a lyric without having to fit it to a tune, I always make
it too much like a set of light verse, much too regular in meter. I
think you get the best results by giving the composer his head and
having the lyricist follow him. When you have the melody, you can
see which are the musical high spots in it and can fit the high spots
of the lyric to them. Anyway, that’s how I like working, and to hell
with anyone who says I oughtn’t to. (From P.G. Wodehouse:
Portrait of a Master by David Jasen [1975])
To illustrate the different approaches Gilbert and Wodehouse
adopted, for example, in expressing love, one only has to contrast
Frederick’s melodramatic proclamation to Mabel in The Pirates of
Penzance with Wodehouse’s whimsical yet intimate exchanges in “If
I Ever Lost You.”
Wodehouse later recalled how he and Kern worked together — but
not necessarily during the same hours!
Often in the Princess days my telephone would ring in the small
hours.
“Plum? Jerry.”
“Good heavens, Jerry, do you know what time it is?”
“Quite early, isn’t it? Are you in bed?”
“I was.”
“Oh. Well, I’ve just got that first act duet we were worrying about.
Get a pencil and paper.”
His telephone was on the piano, and he would play me the melody
and I would take down a dummy and totter back to bed. Jerry
OH, GEE! OH, JOY!
REFRAIN
REFRAIN
So won’t you tell me all your troubles,
Cutie?
I’m waiting here to listen while you do.
I hate to see you feel so blue,
Come on and tell me, dearie,
And I will comfort you.
Oh, come along and tell me all about it.
Some way to fix it we are sure to see.
If you’ve a pal to help you out,
You’ll find there’s nothing much
For you to fuss about.
You’ll soon forget your troubles, Cutie,
If you will tell ’em all to me.
Oh, gee! Oh, joy!
The birds are singing.
Because why?
Because I am in love!
Oh, gee! Oh, joy!
The bells are ringing.
Because why?
Because I am in love.
And all the while I seem in a dream
I never was so happy!
Folks complain
I’m insane,
Because I act so sappy.
Oh, gee! Oh, joy!
The birds are singing.
Because why?
Because I am in love!
Yea bo, but isn’t love great! Gee whiz!
Heigh-ho! I’m willing to state, it is!
Don’t know who the chap was who first
began it,
But it’s the only thing on this planet.
Refrain
TELL ME ALL YOUR TROUBLES,
CUTIE
I wonder why you look so sad,
I’m feeling blue.
Perhaps you’ll find it not so bad,
So cheer up, do!
My troubles make me gloomy,
For life’s gone wrong.
If you will tell them to me,
They won’t last long.
I think you’ve something on your mind,
I’m worried, too.
To me you’ve been so nice and kind,
I must help you.
Oh, no, I won’t start whining,
Please don’t mind me.
Oh, yes, a silver lining
We’re sure to see.
Refrain
YOU’RE THE TOP
At words poetic
I’m so pathetic
That I always have found it best
Instead of getting them off my chest
To let ‘em rest
Unexpressed.
I hate parading my serenading
As I’ll probably miss a bar —
But if this ditty
Is not so pretty,
At least it’ll tell you
How great you are.
You’re the top – you’re the Coliseum,
You’re the top – you’re the Louvre Museum.
You’re a melody from a symphony by
Strauss.
You’re an Ascot bonnet,
A Shakespeare sonnet,
You’re Mickey Mouse.
You’re the Nile – you’re the tower of Pisa,
You’re the smile of the Mona Lisa.
I’m a worthless cheque – a total wreck –
a flop.
You’re the top.
Your words poetic
Are not pathetic
On the other hand, boy, you shine
And I can feel after every line
A thrill divine, down my spine.
Some gifted fellow, like young Novello
Might think that your song is bad.
But for a person who’s just rehearsin’
Well, I gotta say this, my lad.
You’re the top – you’re Mahatma Gandhi,
You’re the top – you’re Napoleon Brandy.
You’re the purple light, of a summer
night in Spain.
You’re the National Gallery,
You’re Garbo’s salary,
You’re cellophane,
You’re the grace of the Brontosaurus,
You’re the pace of a Cochran chorus.
I’m a toy balloon, that’s fated soon to pop.
You’re the top.
You’re the top – you’re a Russian salad,
You’re the top – you’re a Gershwin ballad.
11
Art Direction: LuAnn Graffeo/
64 Second Design
Color photography: © 2001 Johan
Elbers.
Hair & Make-up: Denise Melroy
Stylist: Tish Johnson
This album is dedicated to the
late Benny Green (1927-98),
who publicly expressed his love
for Wodehouse’s lyrics over
many years.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Candida Alderson, Michael
Armstrong, Andrew Boose,
Stephen Brooker, Hilary Bruce,
Janice Chapman, Mary Christie,
Lorna Dallas, Jan Eade,
Simon Flind, Ann Marie Gardner,
Scott Gilmore, Benny Green,
Mary Rodgers Guettel, Kate Jones,
Lorna Koski, David Lasnet, Mark
and Sasha Lazard (and Bunny),
Robert Lee, Peter Lobbenberg,
Richard O’ Regan, Tim Rice,
Elaine Ring, Tony Ring, Ned Sherrin,
Michael Sukin, Julie Thayer,
Caroline Underwood, W Magazine,
Andrew Lloyd Webber and
the Cazalet family
10
Many of the best songs came from shows which were less successful,
and rarely revived. Occasionally, lyrics might be interpolated into
revivals of other shows (such as a post-war production of Sally), but
this alone was not sufficient to haul them back to the forefront of
popular acclaim.
The late, perceptive musician and broadcaster Benny Green
(1927-98) praised and promoted Wodehouse’s lyrics at every
opportunity. The last decade has seen increasing interest in the
musical comedy of the first half of the 20th century, and the
importance of Wodehouse’s legacy is starting to be more widely
appreciated. This recording is a further contribution to the process,
and is a project of which Benny both knew and approved. I would
therefore like to close these notes with a touching extract from his
biography of Wodehouse:
Until the end of his life, Wodehouse remained in postal touch with
Ira Gershwin, who treasured the cards and letters, not just because
of the whimsicality of their contents, nor even because the two men
loved and admired each other so much, but because the survival
of each man was to the other a surety that their mutual past was
not yet lost. They were like two ancient mandarins of a vanished
age, sitting back and observing with amused wonder the drunken
financial cavortings of the latter-day American musical. In the
last days of his friendship with Ira, Wodehouse heard news of
two Broadway productions which had speedily foundered at a
combined cost to their backers of over a million dollars. Picking
up his pen, he wrote his annual Christmas card to his old friend.
The inscription read: “Ira, we are well out of it.”
This recording provides an opportunity to hear songs of great
pedigree. I hope you enjoy them.
© Tony Ring
April 2001
probably stayed up and worked on the second act trio. (From
P.G. Wodehouse: A Literary Biography by Benny Green [1981,
Pavilion Books])
Wodehouse and His Other Composers: ‘My favorite librettist’
(Cole Porter)
Wodehouse worked with about 20 composers during his career
including George Gershwin (Oh, Kay!, Rosalie), Ivor Novello (The
Golden Moth) and Cole Porter (Anything Goes). He was also paid a
compliment by Irving Berlin, who always wrote his own lyrics but
nevertheless agreed that Wodehouse should be lyricist to Berlin’s
music for Sitting Pretty. After a series of mishaps, Berlin never did
write the score, so sadly the Berlin/Wodehouse combination was
never tested, but Jerome Kern did produce an exquisite score and
Wodehouse’s lyrics prove he was still at the top of his form.
‘Innovator’ – The Opinions of Others: ‘Picking up the light verse
tradition of W. S. Gilbert, he became the pathfinder for Larry Hart,
Cole Porter, Ira Gershwin and everyone else who followed.’ (Alan Jay
Lerner)
In his book Let’s Face the Music (Michael Joseph, 1989), Benny
Green wrote:
…the Princess shows possessed a unique quality which influenced
a whole generation of native American lyricists: Ira Gershwin,
Cole Porter, Howard Dietz, Johnny Mercer, Alan Jay Lerner
and Oscar Hammerstein II are among those who have testified
to the revelatory nature of what Wodehouse was doing with
Kern’s melodies.
Ira Gershwin regarded him as his mentor and dated the first
glimmering of higher quality lyrics to the start of the
Kern/Wodehouse collaboration in 1916. He told Benny Green
that Wodehouse’s talent in this area had never been recognized.
“No one wrote more charming lyrics than he in the period from
just before the first World War to the early 1920s.”
Roberta Peters, June Anderson
and Arlene Auger.
Steven is on the faculty of the
Juilliard School. He has appeared
as a regular guest on the
Metropolitan Opera broadcast
intermissions, and this past
year he took on the role of
quiz master for the 2000 - 2001
season.
Lara Cazalet
Lara studied for three years at
the Academy of Live and Recorded
Arts in London. She appeared at
the 1996 Edinburgh Festival, as
the lead in the musical 42nd
Street, a season in repertory
theater at the Theater Royal,
7
Northampton and the Oxford
Shakespeare Festival. Her
television work includes
The Alchemist, Kavanagh QC,
An Inspector Calls, Always and
Everyone, The Bill and Harbour
Lights. In 1998, she was cast
as one of the principal roles in
the smash hit ITV television
drama Badgirls.
Lara is the great grand-daughter
of P.G.Wodehouse.
GREG UTZIG - Banjo: Track 5;
Ukulele: Track 4; Banjo, Ukulele:
Track 13; Guitar, Banjo: Track 16
Greg Utzig has played guitar, banjo
and mandolin for over 30 Broadway
shows. As a jazz guitarist he has
worked with Charles Earland, Marty
Morrel and Roland Vasquez as well
as vocalists Barbara Cook, Placido
Domingo, Frederica Von Stade
and Jane Olivor.
MARK STEWART - Banjo: Track 2;
Guitar, Cello: Track 7; Guitar: Tracks
8, 15; Cello: Track 9
Multi-instrumentalist and singer
Mark Stewart recently toured and
performed with Paul Simon and
also played in the orchestras of
many Broadway musicals, most
8
Johnny Mercer suggested that “One day, in 50, a hundred years
time, the words of Porter, Hart, Wodehouse, Gershwin, Coward,
maybe a few of my own, will be published, recited, analyzed,
codified.” Lorenz Hart was said by his biographer to have been
inspired by Wodehouse. Howard Dietz included Wodehouse in
the list of the 10 most influential lyricists in the development of the
American musical and specified him as the lyricist he most
admired. Richard Rodgers found the Princess shows far more
appealing than the overblown operettas which dominated
Broadway in the wake of The Merry Widow and The Chocolate
Soldier, and in a telegram to Wodehouse on his 80th birthday
recalled how much he, Hart and Hammerstein had been taught by
Wodehouse through the ages.
The Views of the Critics
This is the trio of musical fame,
Bolton and Wodehouse and Kern:
Better than anyone else you can name,
Bolton and Wodehouse and Kern.
Nobody knows what on earth they’ve been bitten by;
All I can say is I mean to get lit an’ buy
Orchestra stalls for the next one that’s written by
Bolton and Wodehouse and Kern.
This unsigned tribute in The New York Times, understood to have
been written by the playwright George S. Kaufman, demonstrated
the strength of appreciation which the new approach aroused even
in the bosoms of the feistiest critic. That gang of potential grave
diggers realized that here were lyrics worthy of attention, in which
the words themselves might have an entertainment value. The
notoriously difficult-to-please Dorothy Parker admitted in Vanity
Fair that “Bolton, Wodehouse and Kern are my favorite indoor
sport….I like the way they go about a musical comedy.”
Lyrics With Humor and Deftness of Touch
Although by no means all his lyrics were funny, one can usually
detect a twinkle of the eye, an unexpected phrase here, an ironic
comment there, which shows that humor is bubbling below the
surface. He wrote ballads (“Go, Little Boat,” “Bill”), dance songs
(“Non-Stop Dancing,” “Shimmy With Me”), historical lampoons
(“Sir Galahad”), songs of sheer joyful fun (“Oh, Gee! Oh, Joy!,”
“Rolled Into One”) and sentimental songs which always carried
dramatic tension or surprise (“You Never Knew About Me,” “If I
Ever Lost You”). And finally, and more profoundly, he evoked
feelings of fantasy and idealism (“My Castle in the Air,” “The Land
Where the Good Songs Go”).
The Big Question: Where Have All These Songs Been?
Wodehouse never lost his interest in the theater, but the simple
truth is that his fiction became too successful and he became too
busy to give lyric writing the attention it required. Apart from two
somewhat unsuccessful forays into Hollywood, he was creating
several memorable story groups (Jeeves and Wooster, Blandings
Castle, Mr. Mulliner, The Oldest Member, Ukridge, The Drones Club,
Psmith, Lord Ickenham), which together represented a discrete
Wodehouse world. He wrote, jointly or by way of adaptation,
some 20 straight plays as well, and was always involved in bringing
them to the stage in Britain, America or both. Something had to
give, and it proved to be lyric writing, although he continued
to dabble, for instance, by anglicizing the lyrics for two Cole
Porter songs (“You’re the Top,” “Anything Goes”) for the London
production of Anything Goes (1935).
Jerome Kern was the composer with whom he worked the most,
and Kern’s later scores continued the development of the musical
form. There were very few recordings of the shows of the 1910s,
and the songs, although published, have been forgotten. None of
the joint productions were filmed, so that videos are not available.
recently The Lion King. He is a
founding member of Bang on a
Can All-Stars and has worked with
Steve Reich, David Krakauer,
Zeena Parkins, Elliot Goldenthal
and Meredith Monk among others.
STEVEN BLIER - Piano on all
tracks.
The Enchanted Train arranged and
performed for two pianos by
Steven Blier and Hal Cazalet.
Recorded at Manhattan Beach
Studios, New York City: January
9-11, 2000 and April 11, 2001.
Engineer: Danny Lawrence
Master Sound Astoria Studios,
Astoria, New York: October 23-25,
2000. Engineers: Joe Castellon
and Ted Trewhella.
Edited and mixed at Whitfield
Street Studios, London, by Bob
Whitney and Mike Ross-Trevor.
Final mix and mastering by Phil
Harmer at Snake Ranch Studios,
London (ProTools from 21.AD).
Produced by Hal Cazalet
Produced for Harbinger Records
by Ken Bloom
9

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