babbit and bromide
bm...@worldnet.att.net
thank you pl reply email or this news group
erin c/o altmusiclyrics
Follies" CD
If anyone has corrections, send 'em on over
After the song, I included part of the liner notes from the
CD "Gene Kelly At M-G-M: S' Wonderful" about "The Babbitt
and the Bromide"
erin
---
The Babbitt and The Bromide
(Music - George Gershwin; Lyrics - Ira Gershwin; 1927)
vocals by Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly
recorded 05/12/44
from the MGM movie "Ziegfeld Follies"
A babbitt met a bromide
On the avenue one day
And they held the conversation
In their own peculiar way
They both were solid citizens
They both had been around
And as they spoke you clearly saw
Their feet were on the ground
Hello?
How are you?
How's the folks?
What's new?
I'm great!
That's good!
Ha ha!
Knock Wood
Well well
That's life
Whaddya know?
How's the wife?
Gotta run
0h my
Ta-ta
Olive Oyl
Goodbye
Ten years went quickly by
For both these substiantial men
And then it happened that one day
They chanced to meet again
That they had both developed
In ten years there was no doubt
And so of course they had
An awful lot to talk about
Hello?
How are you?
How's the folks?
What's new?
I'm great!
That's good!
Ha ha!
Knock Wood
Well well
That's life
Whaddya know?
How's the wife?
Gotta run
0h my
Ta-ta
Olive Oyl
Goodbye
Before they met again
Some twenty years they had to wait
This time it happened up above
Inside St. Peter's gate
A harp each one was carrying
And both were sprouting wings
And this is what they said
As they were strumming on the strings
Hello?
How are you?
How's the folks?
What's new?
I'm great!
That's good!
Ha ha!
Knock Wood
Well well
That's life
Whaddya know?
How's the wife?
Gotta fly
0h my
Ta-ta
Olive Oyl
Goodbye
---
http://www.rhino.com/Albums/72437lin.html
"The Babbitt And The Bromide" number in Ziegfeld Follies,
contrastingly, is completely unique in the annals of
cinema-nothing like this teaming of titans Kelly and Astaire
exists elsewhere, with the exception of the meeting of
Crosby and Sinatra in High Society a decade later. Astaire
had first performed this Gershwin bauble with his sister
Adele in the 1927 show Funny Face; "Babbitt," from Sinclair
Lewis' 1922 novel, refers to a bourgeois middle-American
philistine, while "Bromide" described an obvious truism or
platitude. (In this pre-Popeye period, however, it's hard to
ascertain what Ira Gershwin meant by the slang salutation
"Olive oyl!") Both in 1927 and 1946 it's a glorious hymn to
small talk, with the amusingly repetitious rhythms of our
twin heroes' blasé speech-these Babbitts spouting
bromides-joyfully drowned out by the exciting beat of their
taps. Although the screen version dropped some of the
lyrics, it retained the format of having the dual
protagonists age by decades with each chorus. The finale
transpires "up above, inside St. Peter's Gate," where the
statue of a Civil War hero and his horse in the background
now sprouts harp and wings. As the tempo shifts to a
heavenly waltz, both our "sub-sti-ant-ial men" have been
fitted with dapper goatees in an inside-joke reference to
the debonair deportment of the number's conductor (and
longtime Metro man-about-music), Lennie Hayton.
---
bm...@worldnet.att.net wrote:
>
> does anyone have lyrics to the babbit and the bromide by gershwin
> thank you pl reply email or this news group
--
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