Interesting song, written 80-plus years ago by Irving Berlin. Heavily syncopated with vivid lyrics jammed into all those stop-and-start phrases.
Always interesting.
But the version going through my brain?
The Young Frankenstein version, with Gene Wilder and Peter Boyle, who are linked here.
Complete with the not-quite-articulated “puttin’ on the Ritz” — PUH-UH-UH-UH-RUH! — from Boyle’s monster which, after all, was recently cobbled together by the good doctor from various and sundry cadavers.
(Including Abby Someone.)
In the wiki page devoted to the song, linked above, an expert in American music is quoted as saying the song was “the most complex and provocative I have ever come upon.”
The lyrics are just plain fun, and refer to elegantly dressed swells in duds fit for the Ritz Hotel — still a byword for high-end living, a century later.
Have you seen the well-to-do, up and down Park Avenue
On that famous thoroughfare, with their noses in the air
High hats and Arrow collars, white spats and lots of dollars
Spending every dime, for a wonderful time
If you’re blue and you don’t know where to go to
Why don’t you go where fashion sits,
Puttin’ on the ritz.
Different types who wear a daycoat, pants with stripes
And cut away coat, perfect fits,
Puttin’ on the ritz.
Dressed up like a million dollar trouper
Trying hard to look like Gary Cooper (super duper)
Come let’s mix where Rockefellers walk with sticks
Or umbrellas in their mitts
Puttin’ on the Ritz
Tips his hat just like an English chappie
To a lady with a wealthy pappy (very snappy)
You’ll declare it’s simply topping to be there
And hear them swapping smart tidbits
Puttin’ on the ritz!
Curiously, I want to pick up the song at the fifth line … “If you’re blue and you don’t know where to go to …”
And it’s running in my head, an aural GIF.
I don’t mind it, yet. Give me another hour.
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