Content deleted Content added
Randy Kryn (talk | contribs) added year |
Citation bot (talk | contribs) Added date. | Use this bot. Report bugs. | Suggested by Abductive | Category:Songs from Show Boat | #UCB_Category 2/5 |
||
| (19 intermediate revisions by 14 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{short description|Song by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II, from the 1927 musical play Show Boat}}
"'''Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man'''" with music by [[Jerome Kern]], and lyrics by [[Oscar Hammerstein II]], is one of the most famous songs from their classic 1927 [[musical play]] ''[[Show Boat]]'', adapted from [[Edna Ferber]]'s 1926 novel.
Its musical composition entered the public ___domain on January 1, 2023.<ref>[https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2023/ Public Domain Day 2023]</ref>
==Context==
[[File:TillCloudsRollBy01.jpg|thumb|250px|right|[[Lena Horne]] as Julie Laverne singing the song in a mini-production of ''[[Show Boat]]'' in ''[[Till the Clouds Roll By]]'' (1946), a fictionalized biography of composer [[Jerome Kern]]. ]]
The song, written in a [[blues]] tempo, is sung in the show by several characters, but is most closely associated with the character [[Julie Dozier|Julie]], the biracial leading lady of the showboat ''Cotton Blossom''. It is Julie who is first heard singing the song – to Magnolia, the daughter of Cap'n Andy Hawks and his wife Parthenia (Parthy), owners of the showboat. In the musical's plot, the number is supposed to be a song familiar to African-Americans for years, and this provides one of the most dramatic moments in the show. When Queenie, the black cook, comments that it is strange that light-skinned Julie knows the song because only black people sing it, Julie becomes visibly uncomfortable. Later, we learn that this is because Julie is "[[Passing (racial identity)|passing]]" as white – she and her white husband are guilty of [[miscegenation]] under the state's law.
Immediately after Julie sings the song through once, Queenie chimes in with her own lyrics to it, and she is joined by her husband Joe, the black [[stevedore]] on the boat. This is followed by Julie, Queenie, Magnolia, Joe, and the black chorus all performing a song-and-dance to the number.
Line 16 ⟶ 18:
==History of performances==
"Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" was strongly associated with 1920s [[torch singer]] [[Helen Morgan (singer)|Helen Morgan]], who played Julie in the original 1927 stage production of ''Show Boat'', as well as the 1932 revival and [[Show Boat (1936 film)|the 1936 film version]].<ref>
The song was performed as a song and [[Tap dance|soft shoe dance]] by actress, singer and dancer [[Jessica Lange]] and actress and dancer [[Drew Barrymore]], accompanied on piano by actor, singer and pianist [[Malcolm Gets]], playing the roles of "Big Edie" [[Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale|Edith Bouvier Beale]] and her daughter "Little Edie" [[Edith Bouvier Beale]] and piano accompanist George Gould Strong, in HBO's 2009 dramatization ''[[Grey Gardens (2009 film)|Grey Gardens]]''<ref>{{cite web|title=''Grey Gardens''|website=IMDb.com|url=https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0758751/|access-date=20 May 2021}}</ref> based on the 1975 documentary ''[[Grey Gardens]]''.
Famous composer and "King of Satire" Tom Lehrer parodied the first two lines of the song in the 1959 song "She's My Girl", with the opening lines: "Sharks gotta swim, and bats gotta fly; / I gotta love one woman till I die". In 1965, as part of the album ''[[That Was the Year That Was|That Was the Year that Was]]'', later, he quoted those lines in the song "Pollution": "Fish gotta swim, and birds gotta fly, / But they don't last long if they try".
==Partial song lyrics==
Line 22 ⟶ 28:
::(JULIE sings...)
::''Fish got to swim, birds got to fly,''
::''I gotta love one man till I die,''
::''Can't help lovin' dat man of mine.''
::(MAGNOLIA recognizes the song):
::''That's it...''
::(QUEENIE, re-entering, stops in her tracks and appears puzzled.)
::(JULIE continues singing...)
::''Tell me he's lazy, tell me he's slow,''
::''Tell me I'm crazy (maybe I know)''
::''Can't help lovin' dat man of mine.''
::(QUEENIE questions how would white people know the song):
::''How come y'all know dat song?''
:: (...remainder omitted due to copyright restrictions...)
Line 45 ⟶ 51:
In its own way, the song is almost as controversial as the song "[[Ol' Man River]]" (also from ''Show Boat'') because of some phrases, though its lyrics have caused less of an uproar because the "offensive" portion is sung not by Julie but by Queenie, and is therefore not usually heard outside the show. In her section of the song, Queenie sings about Joe:
::''My man is shiftless,''
::''An' good for nothin', too.''
::''He's my man just the same.''
::''He's never 'round here''
::''When there is work to do,''
::''He's never 'round here when there's workin' to do.''
This lyric was included in every production of ''Show Boat'' up until 1966, except for the 1951 film version, in which this section of the song was simply omitted. In the 1966 [[Lincoln Center]] production of the show, produced during the height of the [[Civil Rights]] era, this part of the lyric was completely rewritten by an uncredited writer to avoid any controversy, and it has remained that way ever since – except in the now-famous [[EMI]] 3-CD album set of ''Show Boat'', released in 1988. The revised lyric went:
::''My man's a dreamer,''
::''He don't have much to say''
::''He's my man just the same''
::''Instead o' workin,''
::''He sits and dreams all day,''
::''Instead o' workin', he'll be dreamin' all day.''
The 1951 film version of ''Show Boat'' went even one step further than the 1966 stage revival in "smoothing out" any "edginess" about the song, by omitting all reference to it as one sung for years by [[African-Americans]], and thereby omitting the section in which Queenie remarks that it is strange for Julie to know the song. In the 1951 film, the song is simply a love song Julie sings about her husband Steve, not a folk tune. Lena Horne also sings it this way in ''Till the Clouds Roll By''.
Line 69 ⟶ 75:
{{Reflist}}
==Additional references==
* Kreuger, Miles ''Show Boat: The Story of a Classic American Musical'', Oxford, 1977.
{{Show Boat}}
{{authority control}}
[[Category:Songs from Show Boat]]
| |||