Once again, such a good performance. Thanks!

✨

sometimes i miss some when they first come out ✨

I never thought I'd hear someone perform this rather obscure song. Lovely job as always. Have you seen the film? Be well!

Yeah, good as your rendition is, this is never gonna be on my personal playlist. Not nostalgic for the raccoon coat craze. Or the raccoon cap craze that came later, with the Davy Crockett films Disney put out. Leaving animal cruelty out of it, just on the basis of personal style alone--nah. But still, interesting bit of history.

Beautiful performance!

A winning smile.

✨

I've visited Inspiration Point many times. It was originally along Old Riverside Drive, serving as a scenic lookout over the Hudson River, as you mention As Larry Hart slyly hints, it was also used for innocent yet illicit purposes the constabulary might frown on at times, and thus you'd be hauled off to the police station. These days, what's left of it is alongside the Henry Hudson Expressway. Much less suited for trysts. Killjoys. But for all I know, it still happens sometimes. Probably without any conscious realization that somewhere, Larry Hart is wearing that infectious grin of his. ;)

Great.

Absolutely lovely. Oh, to be able to write songs like that. Thank you.

Excellent rhythm 🎹👏👏👏

Very lovely performance, nice Jeanette MacDonald vibes. I'm happy you are a Marx Brothers fan. Chico and Harpo were uniquely wonderful musicians. Time for me to re-watch their movies. Do you have a favorite? -- Steve (with a new username but same old commenter)

Another great tune and performance!

You always bring joy to my day when you share your talents with us ✨

This is now one of my favorites of all your selections. Dad

So where do you want that Spanish Castle, ma'am? Over by the gator-infested swamp? Excellent choice. Discourage door to door salesmen. Now let's talk facade. You can have it in genuine faux brickface, mock-aluminum siding, or almost natural wood paneling. You can even get stucco! Oh how you can get stucco. Seriously I first saw that movie in the early 70's, and had no idea Irving Berlin wrote that. Or that it could get even better. By having a verse. I don't suppose you can do Chico's piano style? Maybe I better quit now, before I'm playing the harp.

You bring a lot of nuance and vibe to this song. It sounds amazing!

Do you ever get the feeling, playing 1920's songs like this, that the whole country--at least the part of it with money--was going around in a state of generalized delirium? Nobody's allowed to be a downer. Until, of course, October 29th, 1929. Black Tuesday. Myself, I do like sad songs, because sometimes they have more to say about the world and how it makes us feel. But I still like this one. And the way you render it. And most of all, that you don't call it an Eddie Cantor cover. Yeah, he was associated with it, you mention that, but he didn't WRITE it, and you tell us who did. Lately, a lot of KZbin singers--many of whom are talented--seem to think that a 'cover' is singing a song somebody you admire also sang, even if they neither wrote nor introduced it. For example, did you know Chet Baker wrote My Funny Valentine? Pretty sure Chet never knew that. Oh well, that was a different form of delirium, from a different era. And we have our variations of it today. ;)

👏👏👏❤

✨

I listen to this song every day.

Not one of his best, but fun. He was just starting to get his stride (and am I wrong in thinking this piece if written in a stride piano beat? I'm often wrong about that kind of thing.) Anyway, kudos on the accompaniment. Somebody worked hard on that arrangement, and you played it to perfection.

So nice performance, once again. A joy to listen to this!😊

I can't for the life of me see how anyone would sing this without the verse. Porter's delight in reminding us of our animal antecedants (also seen in "Let's Do It") is apparent. Melodically, the song that replaced this is better, but I think the lyrics here are a little better.

I've been a bit resistant to this one, since becoming a Rodgers & Hart groupie. I had never known the whole song, since nobody sings the whole song. Well, you did. Hart gets hit for being too clever (because there's sucn an overabundance of intelligence in this world?). But there's so much sincere feeling beneath the fusillades of wit. First time I ever heard this song was on The Dick Van Dyke Show--Rob and Laura singing it at home. Rodgers & Hart cast a very long shadow, and people probably did very often sing this one as home entertainment--and if they flubbed some lines, that would only add to the fun and fellowship that Hart reveled in. Generous soul that he was. He didn't have a stingy bone in his diminuative body. I get it now. Finally. He was dreaming. He did that.

For a very long time, I didn't even know this one had a verse. Jazz singers rarely deploy it--Carmen McRae is a noteworthy exception (often was, in this regard). I think it adds a lot to the story the song tells. The song turned a hundred years old last year, and all anybody wanted to talk about was Rhapsody in Blue (as an example of cultural appropropriation, which is to say he knew how to learn from other musical cultures, value them, add to them--and how is that a negative again?) To me, this is more important. Ira Gershwin, in his own way, was as much a genius as his brother. And what they made together still resonates. Still tells the truth. Maybe you know the story--when John O'Hara heard the sad news of his friend's passing, he said "George Gershwin died on July 11, 1937, but I don't have to believe it if I don't want to." Thanks for helping keep him alive.

Irving wrote another verse for an appearance in the 1943 film, "This Is The Army." Which I sang, along with the chorus, on a freezing cold morning, for some fellow birdwatchers who were doing a Christmas Bird Count. I made a few minor modifications, since none of us were in the military. It's a very durable lyric. I'm sure military variations persist to this very day. I was standing just yards away from his grave, you see. In Woodlawn Cemetery, in The Bronx. But it had snowed the night before. And it's a tiny tiny marker--flat on the ground. No standing stone. Hard to find at the best of times. So I couldn't find it, due to the snow. Sang the song anyway. Irving was a humble man. Or maybe he was just frugal. Could be both.

Bravissima

My grandpa used to sing this. This brings back memories.

Excellent 👍

❤we luv the sheet music lady ❤

Wonderful performance! I lack the vocabulary to describe it well, but you did great adjusting your voice to the song (a little different than your usual singing voice). P.S. The New York Times recently gave a positive review to a new book, Ira Gershwin: A Life in Words by Michael Owen. -- Steve

Hmm. Porter must have winced a bit, years later, if anyone sang the first verse--with the horse running wild thing. Ouch. But to hear this song as it was first meant to be sung--enjoyed the ride very much.

Fantastic! 👏👏👏

Wow. I like the verse better than the chorus. Now that I've heard it. After over half a century of knowing the chorus by heart. I've seen different arguments for why there were verses in so many old songs. One is that in the theater, people would be tuning out a bit, and the verse was to get them focused in on the singer before the chorus, in unmiked theaters. But this is a Tin Pan Alley ditty. With two verses. So much for that theory. Oh well, could apply to vaudeville. Probably does.

Full of verve. Excellent. Thank you. Did this number feature in the 1938 movie of the same name starring Alice Faye, I wonder?

Do you take requests?

One of my favourite songs from the period from one of my favourite singing piano playing ladies.

Great!!

I love you singing and playing. Awesome song choices too!

Love this. I first learned this song from June Allyson, in the Rodgers & Hart biopic Words and Music. What always puzzles me is that before June starts singing, these twin brothers playing rivals for her hand sing this prefatory snatch of song that does not appear to be from Thou Swell. Then June sings Sandy's verse and then into the chorus. Then dancing. It's pretty nice. But not the way it was done on Broadway. I don't think. Well, the movie gets a lot of other things wrong too. Like they could get Larry's personal life right in a movie made then. (Or Dick's for that matter).

I knew there must be a verse. I had no idea what it was. Now I know there were two. THANK you.

Wow! I didn't even know there was a second verse! It's never used, probably because this was clearly written as a duet between lovers, and in that era, you'd write one verse for the boy, one for the girl, and they'd both sing the chorus, eventually together. Everybody knows "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" from Billie Holiday & Co, but the original Dorothy Fields lyric had two verses, and it's the poor boy and equally poor girl making longterm promises to each other. Which were hopefully kept, Fields just heard two lovers talking while standing in front of the Tiffany's store window. Or so the story goes. Lorenz Hart was particularly good at this form, relishing the challenge--"With A Song In My Heart." "I Could Write a Book." "The Blue Room." "Thou Swell, Thou Witty." "You Have Cast Your Shadow on The Sea." "You Took Advantage of Me." "A Ship Without A Sail." The songs could be very plaintive and romantic, or humorous--in the case of "I'll Tell The Man in The Street" the girl sings her siren song to a reluctant swain, and he, wanting to stay free, says there's no way she's getting her prey. (She gets him anyway). "I Could Write A Book" from "Pal Joey" is the boy trying to seduce the girl with false feeling, and she responds with true. The variations are endless. I wish there'd be a whole concert--that I could get to--"Duets"--paired vocalists singing these type of songs in tandem. The only way they can can be understood in their original context.

Who else makes this kind of a music? I don`t recall any other artist right now. Your performances are somehow so exciting, and that`s a good thing.

Love it!

Wow, I am surprised I haven't found you sooner! I am a music historian who specialises in American pop music from the early 20th century. I love what you do keep going! You're a treat to the academics who do not have the ability to recreate the energy as much as you can haha

The way you look and smile to the camera reminds me of Liberace. He was an innovator in that regard.

Just discovered your channel and subscribed! Love the concept and appreciate the thorough research that goes in to your video descriptions. Enjoyed the Cole Porter tune and Happy Public Domain Day!

It`s good that you play these great old songs. A joy to listen, once again.😊