I’m considering performing Weill’s torch song from One Touch of Venus (lyrics but Ogden Nash) with a small jazz combo.
I would sing in a low baritone and go down to deep bass for the line “For heaven’s sake what IS it?” Where the usual woman singer would go up to a high soprano,
Considering I would flip pronouns, and change “my face between his hands” to “her face between my hands,” would this work? Or is it too obviously a woman’s song?
Here’s an exemplary performance for anyone not familiar:
I don’t see how it’s obviously a woman’s song. You could even do it with same-sex lyrics.
“You see here before you
A woman with a mission,”
is a bit of a giveaway.
I don’t think Ogden Nash will sue you for adapting the lyrics. Just do it well.
As for being a woman’s song, on one hand, the macho-macho stereotype is that a man would never spend five straight minutes thinking about a woman, to say nothing about pining for her or whatever. But then, the song is not quite like that, plus you have to think about your character. In any case note that, going with the classical theme, surely no one was more manly than Odysseus, and he was pretty weepy on Ogygia (though, again, that is not what the song is about; it’s about the anaemic absence of passion these days which is a gender-neutral theme).