I am not the showtune afficiando that I use to be -as most of my music is on record and a few CDs, that are scratched or lost in action - , but the music lives on in my DNA. *
Music Man has a truck load, and I have to say that **The Wells Fargo Wagon ** song is possibly my favorite over all to sing at any given moment or during moments of stretching the excitement for my kids (who go :dubious: )
I whistle Marion The Librarian everytime I am at the library.
Y’got Trouble my friends…which rhymes with P and that stands for Pool is something that crops up everytime people in Hooterville here start going off on an intangent of “Can you beleive there is a (cigerette store/whatever)now on the highway…” What this town needs is a pool table and Henry Hill! Oh, Robert Preston, how I love thee! Guys and Dolls:
Sit down your rockin’ the boat if only I knew all the words …
I got the horse right here… which a friend and I sing the opening parts to this at least once a year for no other reason than that we like it. Lion King:
"I just can’t wait to be King.** is a ditty that I love to sing out for my kids when they are being demanding little buggers. (again, I get the :dubious: )
and who can forget the everlovin’ pipes of the Great and Imperious: Ethel Merman and There’s No Business Like Show Business and one of these centuries I will by a greatest hits of hers…cause…that voice! Those pipes…In my next life I am either going to sing like her, or be a tranny and dress up like her.
I’m missing a bunch here…but I know the broadway and chorus line doper brigade will jump in with their
*All songs peter out to a loud gradiose humming of the tune. What I lack in words I make up for in exuberance.
DAh dah dah dah da da…Let’s Gooooo On with the Show!!!
“Old Man River,” from Showboat. (Fun for when you want to bust out the deeeeeeep voice.)
“Summertime,” from Porgy and Bess.
“Over at the Frankenstein Place,” from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. (I like switching to the falsetto for the backup parts.)
“Hello Dolly.” I have a chainsaw Louis Armstrong thing that I can do for a few minutes before my it starts to hurt too much. Still fun.
I don’t know the lyrics to “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina,” but I like to extemporize my own from time-to-time.
“My Favourite Things,” from The Sound of Music. Straight or filthy, depending on BAL.
If people would get off their ass and mount a Broadway production of The Forbidden Zone, I wouldn’t feel like I was cheating when I include “Pico and Sepulveda,” (the La Brea Tar Pits song.) “Where nobody’s dreams… come true…” Beautiful.
I actually own a rare, vinyl LP album of Ethel Merman singing show tunes to a disco beat…big hit in the Gay discos of the 70’s. Will make you either want to jump back into that white, polyester leisure suit, or commit suicide - depending on how much you have had to drink. You have to hear it to believe it.
But I never miss an opportunity to belt out a show tune when I have a chance.
“Act your age, DMark!”
DMark: “I won’t grow up, I don’t wanna go to school…”
I’m always whistling lotsa stuff from Guys and Dolls - “Oldest Established Permanent Floating Crap Game”, “Luck Be A Lady” and “Guys and Dolls” in particular. Also, I take any opportunity to work in a few lines from The Sound of Music whenever possible. “Don’t Rain on My Parade” is a favourite, especially on Monday mornings when everyone is a bit glum, as is “Artificial Flowers” from Tenderloin is another one of my show-stoppers. I love the shock value of show tunes, because most people don’t figure me for a show-tunes-kinda-guy.
“You Can Always Count On Me” from City of Angels and “Broadway Baby” from Follies are my shower songs.
Those, and a mishmash of Guys and Dolls (“If we only had a lousy little grand, we could be a millionAIRE!”), Annie Get Your Gun (“And you CAIN’T get a HUG from a MUG with a SLUUUUUUUG!”), Brigadoon (“Don’t ye ken? There’s a fair! Down on MacCONaghy Square!”), Kiss Me, Kate (“If you can’t be a ham and do Hamlet, she will not give a damn or a damlet”), and of course Music Man, which I think ties with Into the Woods for “every person ever remotely connected with a musical theater production knows the entire libretto to this show.”
Gilbert and Sullivan’s Big Three get a lot of play, too.
Bushel and a Peck–I sang that to my kids at bedtime.
Iowa–or whatever in Music Man (and we’re so goldarned stubborn we can stand touching noses for a week at a time and never see eye to eye…)
There are tons more, but I am bloated from Xmas overindulgence and have no brain cells left.
I often sing “Anthem” from Chess, for no other reason than the recording I have of it is -perfectly- within my range, and I like the vocal exercise of it.
There are days I’ll be driving home after some hardship, some difficult day, and as I’m pulling into the lot, I’ll look up at my appartment and sing the opening of, “All I Ever Wanted” from Prince of Egypt. I sang it when I was first alone in my appartment, and it’s often soothing to remind myself.
One of my strangest childhood memories ever was watching Ethel lip sync badly and stumble around the stage on Dance Fever. The tune? Her disco version of “Chattanooga Choo-Choo”. Denny Terrio actually had to grab her at the end to keep her from tipping over…
Any damn showtune to which I can remember the words, or fake it gloriously. Yes I did inherit the “gay showtune” gene. Anything from “My Fair Lady”, “The Sound of Music”, or “Hedwig” is fair game. Jayjay and I once spent 3 1/2 hours in the car singing along to the entire cast album of “Gypsy”, dancing in our seats to “Gotta Have A Gimmick” outside of a Sheetz mini mart.
“On the Street Where You Live” from My Fair Lady
“Surrey with a Fringe On Top” from Oklahoma!
“Goldfinger” from Goldfinger
“Put On a Happy Face” from Bye Bye Birdie
Add me to the chorus for Guys and Dolls. I know most of it by heart. I especially like Miss Adelaide’s lament, " a person could develop a cold." Also beloved is Sit Down, Your Rocking The Boat. The title song, *Take Back Your Mink * and Luck Be A Lady Tonight. My mother loved Broadway tunes and often sang them to me. Her favorite song to sing was A Bushel And A Peck. This my favorite musical.
From Hair I like Manchester England England, Aquarius and The Flesh Failures/Let The Sun Shine In.. I also like Easy To Be Hard.
Paint Your Wagon gave us They Call the Wind Mariah, another favorite.
Cabaret- The song *Cabaret * is a great song to sing I also creep myself out when I sing The Future Belongs To Us, a beautiful song with a horrible underlying subtext. If you’re looking for creepy music, this song deserves attention.
My Fair Lady * gave us The Street Where You Live, IMHO one of the most beautiful love songs ever written. I’m Getting Married In The Morning is also great fun. I also like Wouldn’t It Be Luverly?
Fron Damn Yankees- You Gotta Have Heart and Those Were The Good Old Days. My mother loved Whatever Lola Wants and always included that in her repertoire when she sang to me…
Camelot- C’est Moi
*
A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum* gave us Everybody Ought To Have A Maid and Comedy Tonight * both of which I love to sing. And Miles Gloriosus’s wonderful paean to himself. “Stand aside everyone, I take large steps.”
*
The Music Man has so many great songs but I’ve always loved Marian The Librarian the most.
I’ve never understood why only gay men were allowed to admit they love Broadway music. Im not gay, at least I think I’m not but good music is good music wherever it can be found. I see no reason not to admit I like it.
(For the record, I too score very poorly on the Kinsey test. – and yet, showtunes strike a chord I don’t think it’s that uncommon. It’s not like showtunes are a Lhasa-apsa, or anything.)
I find myself “la la la” ing to the tune of “America” from West Side Story more often than I probably ought to. Other than that my spontaneous show tune repertoire is oddly limited.
It’s a kind of foofy dog. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)
I know a few show tunes, but I also know tunes I have no business knowing. I got a box set of The Thin Man and sequels yesterday, and was both proud and alarmed to realize I could name every last damn song played in a long incidental medley during Nick & Nora’s Christmas party. These were all 1934 pop tunes, none great hits.
As for teh gay, um, no thank you. I am thinking things about Myrna Loy’s naked back right now that would hijack this thread something fierce.
I am a show tune freak…if it was a song in a musical I have seen, I will probably be singing it loudly to myself in the car before the day is out. My current favorites are:
Wicked-Defying Gravity, Popular
Chicago-All That Jazz, When You’re Good to Mama
Cats-Memories
Into The Woods-Agony, On The Steps Of The Palace
Chorus Line-Tits And Ass
Anything from How to Succeed, Guys and Dolls, 42nd Street, etc. There are hundreds I am not mentioning here, but they are all equally important. Nothing makes you feel as good as belting out a show tune in the shower or while driving.
Corner of the Sky - from Pippen
alomst anything by Stephen Sondheim (and if it’s not in my range, I transpose) notable exceptions: Pacific Overtures and Sunday in the Park With George
really, anything that strikes my fancy at the time. Name a show, there’s probably a song in it I am willing and ready to belt
but good music is good music wherever it can be found. I see no reason not to admit I like it.