So one of the verses in this early Rodgers and Hart song goes like this:
“We’ll go to Yonkers
Where true love conquers
In the whiles
And starve together dear, in Chiles.”
I’m guessing from the lyric that (in the '20s, when this song was written) Yonkers was well-known as a suburb where Manhattan newlyweds would scrimp to afford their first house. But I have no idea what/where Chiles is. Any ideas?
It’s “Childs,” a very popular chain of restaurants in NYC. I don’t think they’re still around.
I know they were known for their “butter cakes,” some kind of pancakes I think.* The “starve together” may mean that they were impoverished newlyweds, or that the service at Childs was so notoriously slow that they would starve before they would ever get their food.
*The Wikipedia article linked to doesn’t mention butter cakes but says a trademark was front windows through which could be seen pancakes being made.
And I believe “the whiles” is actually “the wilds”, which may well be what a lifelong Manhattanite would think of Yonkers.
Yes. In fact some Manhattanites would say everything north of 110th Street is “the wilds” . . . or 59th Street . . . or even 14th Street . . . or Canal.
Given that Rodgers worked with not one, but two notable “H” lyricists, I propose the following nomenclature, based on each man’s characteristic outlook:
Rodgers & Hart: RH negative
Rodgers & Hammerstein: RH positive
