{"id":1243,"date":"2021-08-10T18:16:59","date_gmt":"2021-08-11T01:16:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/?p=1243"},"modified":"2024-06-01T22:40:01","modified_gmt":"2024-06-02T05:40:01","slug":"music-fred-astaire-swings-his-sing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/2021\/08\/music-fred-astaire-swings-his-sing\/","title":{"rendered":"music: Fred Astaire swings his sing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Everybody reveres Fred Astaire&#8217;s dancing, but he&#8217;s an underrated singer despite his light thin voice. The way he swings and syncopates &#8220;Let the rain pit-ter pat-ter but it reallydoesn&#8217;tmatter if the skies are gray&#8221; in &#8220;Isn&#8217;t it a Lovely Day&#8221; by Irving Berlin is sheer delight. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=NO1sKSCnme8\">This recording<\/a> (can&#8217;t embed it) is a spectacularly good version with Johnny Green&#8217;s &#8220;tea-dance orchestra&#8221; bouncing along on the balls of its own feet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here is the song with dancing from the movie <em>Top Hat<\/em>, not quite as delicious:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers - Isn&#039;t This a Lovely Day (Top Hat) (1935) [Digitally Enhanced]\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/KllSjF4uCDY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"let-s-kiss-and-have-the-fire-squad-mop-up-the-incinerated-remains\">Let&#8217;s Kiss and have the fire squad mop up the incinerated remains<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I watched &#8220;Funny Girl&#8221;, an OK satire on the fashion business and left-wing philosophizing with an unconvincing romance between a bookish younger woman (Audrey Hepburn) and the world-wise older man. The Paris scenes are nice. But in the middle of it Fred takes &#8220;Let&#8217;s Kiss and Make Up&#8221; by George and Ira Berlin, turns the knobs up to 11, swings SO F***ING HARD and torches the movie set. Here are the opening lyrics:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I didn&#8217;t mean to<br>start any scene to,<br>Make you sigh<br>hope to die.<br><br>It&#8217;s most immoral<br>for us to quarrel.<br>Why can we both agree?<br><br>Don&#8217;t you know Ben Franklin wrote about this thing at length?<br>On the proposition that in union there is strength?<br><br>Why raise a storm up<br>if we&#8217;ll just warm up?<br>We&#8217;ll be much stronger<br>and live much longer. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You can hear the syncopation begging for someone with superb rhythm to NAIL IT TO THE F***ING WALL, and Fred does. Listen for the onomatopoeic (probably not, some other Greek term for poetic adjustment) pun where he sings &#8220;at length&#8221;&#8230; at length, then Fred jumps all over the long lines like he&#8217;s dancing up a giant-sized keyboard. And of course &#8220;much longer&#8221; runs subtly long. Then on &#8220;Let&#8217;s kiss \u2014 and make \u2014\u2014up, Come-on Let&#8217;s \u2014wake \u2014\u2014up&#8221; he&#8217;s so far behind the beat the VOLTAGE GOES INTO OVERLOAD. And of course on the couplet &#8220;No use to break up When we can work in harmony&#8221; he goes for divine musical joke #4 in 50 seconds by detuning &#8220;harmony&#8221; like a METAL GUITARIST WARPING HER WHAMMY BAR. And he dances pretty well, too. \ud83c\udfa4\ud83d\ude19\ud83d\udd7a\ud83c\udffb\u2763\ufe0f<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Funny Face (1957) - &quot;Let&#039;s Kiss and Make Up&quot; Song - Audrey Hepburn &amp; Fred Astaire (6 of 10)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0oTVHYuIjFY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Everybody reveres Fred Astaire&#8217;s dancing, but he&#8217;s an underrated singer despite his light thin voice. The way he swings and syncopates &#8220;Let the rain pit-ter pat-ter but it reallydoesn&#8217;tmatter if the skies are gray&#8221; in &#8220;Isn&#8217;t it a Lovely Day&#8221; &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/2021\/08\/music-fred-astaire-swings-his-sing\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1243"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1987,"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1243\/revisions\/1987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}