There's an Old Australian Bush Song

Almost every song in Cole Porter's Anything Goes score has a trick or a central joke to it.

Now to be fair, that's not true of every song in the original 1934 production, which included some very conventional musical comedy songs, among its sharp satire. But with the 1962 revival, its deletion of those more conventional songs and the addition of quite a few Porter songs from other musicals -- the '62 revival essentially created a Porter "greatest hits" show, sort of like My One and Only.

And with this new Frankenstein score, it really is true that almost every song brings some awesome surprises.

More so than most musicals, quite a few songs in Anything Goes (talking about the '62 version) are diegetic, meaning the act of singing is part of the action, and not just the language of the storytelling. In Anything Goes, the characters clearly know they're singing in "Blow, Gabriel, Blow" and "Public Enemy Number One," "Let's Step Out," and "Heaven Hop" (since they describe the dance in the lyric), "Be Like the Bluebird" ("an old Australian bush song" which Moon says he'll "render" for Billy); and arguably "You're the Top," "Friendship," and "Anything Goes." The only songs that are definitely not diegetic are "All Through the Night," "I Get a Kick Out of You," and maybe "De-Lovely." Certainly in "You're the Top," "Friendship," and "De-Lovely," they are at least joking and/or performing for each other, if not "singing."

There's so much to this score that people don't recognize...

"You're the Top" is one of the theatre's great list songs. Billy and Hope are ironically complimenting each other by comparing their charms to celebrities and trendy brand names -- essentially turning Gandhi, Botticelli, and the Mona Lisa into consumer brands. And notice how often the lyric sets old European images (the Tower of Pisa) against the newest American images of the moment (cellophane), again a very subtle nod to the coming story, in which Hope has to choose between Old Europe (Evelyn) and up-to-date America (Billy).

More than anything, "You're the Top" is just a big goof, but one with a pretty sharp satiric edge. Though it's awfully subtle, it lays down one of the two central themes of the show, our American obsession with celebrity and consumerism. It's almost a love song, but it comically filters that love through the ironic lens of materialism and celebrity worship: I love you because you're as wonderful as Ovaltine. And that irony supports the story here, since Reno has feelings for Billy, but Billy doesn't feel the same.

"It's De-Lovely" pokes fun at lyricists like Ira Gershwin and Yip Harburg, who made up crazy words in their lyrics, something Porter actually did a lot less. More often than not, when a Porter song does it, it's because the characters are "playing;" so the made-up words help define character and maybe story. Notice how organically the gimmick is used in this song -- the first time, we hear two real words first ("it's delightful, it's delicious") and then the made-up word ("it's de-lovely"). The more we get into the song, the sillier the words get.

But Porter earns it all with his invention of the word "tinpantithesis," in Hope's intro verse, a made-up word that towers above those of Gershwin and Harburg. Hope worries that her song/singing may be the opposite -- the antithesis -- of "melody," i.e., good music, pretty music. But it's not just the opposite, she's warning him; it's also kind of tacky and common. It's the Tin Pan Alley antithesis of good music, or in Porterspeak, the "Tinpantithesis." That's awfully good writing, and particularly fun in the middle of a song about making up words. Ultimately Hope decides the embarrassment is not worth it, and she'll "skip the damn thing and sing the refrain." But by the time she makes this decision, she has already finished the verse -- about whether or not to sing the verse. That's incredibly "meta" for 1934 -- she's literally singing about her singing.

But what many people miss is -- Hope is making a joke! Billy has been clowning around, and Hope decides to join the fun. It's the first time we see the "fun" Hope; and the first time we really see that there's a Carefree Hope that Billy rode around the park with all night, and there's a Respectable Hope who has accepted her obligations dutifully. Which Hope wins the tug-of-war will tell us who'll she marry.

As if we don't already know.

Also interesting is the ethnic dialect humor, still part of American comedy in 1934 -- "d'vallop" (the wallop, as in "it packs a wallop," i.e., a powerful effect), "de vinner" (the winner), "d'voiks" (the works, meaning "it's everything"). A side note: I've also discovered that in the 1930s, "wallop" was a slang word for beer. I don't think that's connected to this, but I couldn't swear to it...

"Heaven Hop" makes fun of the pop songs that invented new dance "crazes" in the 20s and 30s, cataloging the the moves in their lyrics. Even though this song isn't originally from Anything Goes, it fits surprisingly well here, since we have some angels hanging around.

"Friendship" is one of three songs in the show in which characters are just playing, and consciously trying to amuse -- even crack up -- their friends, alongside "You're the Top" and "It's De-Lovely." It's interesting that both Reno and Billy and are in two of those songs, and Billy is in all three; they are the "playful" characters, from whom the other characters have to learn about joy before our story ends.

"I Get a Kick Out of You" is much more intense than we recognize, maybe because we know it too well. But what's the central point of this song? I don't feel emotions and never have, but I"m starting to feel something for the first time. Literally "everything leaves me totally cold." That's quite an admission from the saucy, sassy, smartass speakeasy hostess. None of the usual thrills -- alcohol, drugs, or adventure (flying in a plane) -- can thrill her, only "you." And then right before the final verse, we find out her love is not returned. Wow.

In the original version, Reno starts the show with this, and it's about her feelings for Billy. In the revivals, this song comes along late in Act I, and now it's about Reno's feelings for Evelyn. It's much stronger in terms of story structure when it comes later -- here it reveals something we're already suspecting, and it sets up one of the narrative threads that will get resolved in Act II.

I know Porter loved to use the latest slang (like George M. Cohan), and it occurred to me that that meaning of the word kick might have been really new at that moment. But according to several sources, kick meaning "surge or fit of pleasure" (often as kicks) goes back to 1941, though the related meaning; "stimulation from liquor or drugs" (the first two verses) goes back to 1844. Anything Goes opened in 1934. Did Porter put that later meaning into our language?

Or are we reading that word differently than Porter meant it? Was he using that older meaning in a new way, suggesting that for Reno this feeling of love is a jolt of intoxication, not just a nice diversion...? Or does it feel that way to Reno because she's never felt anything before...?

By the time we get to the title song, almost every character has been thrown for a loop. Almost every character's world has been thrown out of balance. And everybody in the audience knows what that feels like. And then Reno says (sings) what we all know:

Life is Fucking Crazy. Literally anything goes.

The title of the show and the Act I finale has gotten too familiar to us. The impact of the phrase, "Anything Goes," has dulled over the years, maybe because it's always associated with this "old musical." But this lyric is incredibly well-crafted and tells us so much about that moment in our history, in the midst of great cultural changes. By the end of the song, we realize the title refers ironically both to the wild abandon of the 20s, and the unbelievable hardship and challenges of the 30s, yin and yang. You can read my detailed analysis of the lyric here.

The end of the first act leaves us with a plot cliff-hanger (has Billy lost both hope and Hope?), a big, noisy, full-company dance number, but also a feeling of slight unease -- our world really is that fucked up! Especially in the Trump era, it seems that literally anything goes, and that's as scary as it is freeing.

And then off you go to intermission..

"Public Enemy Number One," a satiric hymn, starts Act II with what feels like a one-joke throwaway, but it's not. This song is the convergence of the show's two main themes -- the way Americans turn religion into show business and criminals into celebrities. In this song, they turn a (supposed) criminal into a celebrity, and then into a religious figure, in a satiric exaggeration of the public's love affair with real celebrity criminals of the 30s, like Bonnie & Clyde, John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, et al. The irony here is even thicker because the audience knows Billy isn't really a criminal -- and inside the story, so do Moon, Bonnie, Reno, and Hope.

(I love that the big-time gangster Snake Eyes Johnson has a moll named Bonnie, presumably after Bonnie Parker...)

It's also interesting to note that in 1934, the Anything Goes audience wasn't there to see if Billy and Hope got together in the end. They were there to see three top show biz celebrities, Ethel Merman, William Gaxton, and Victor Moore -- and arguably by this point, Cole Porter himself was as big a celebrity. The audience was laughing at the onstage passengers being seduced by celebrity, but the audience had been too...

"Let's Step Out" is a curious 1962 interpolation to me. The lyric says virtually nothing the Act I finale didn't already cover ("So let's run wild, let's be fools, let's go crazy and break the rules!"), and there are already plenty of songs in Act II, more than in the original. Maybe it was just an excuse to get some more dance into the show...? The later revivals took this one back out.

"Let's Misbehave," on the other hand, was a brilliant '62 interpolation. Evelyn didn't get a song in 1934, because he was more a device than a main character. In 1962, with more focus on the Evelyn-Reno romance, the two of them got "Let's Misbehave" in Act II, which helps the audience root for this relationship. In the '87 revival, Evelyn got "The Gypsy in Me" instead, which had belonged to Hope in '34. And while "Gypsy" is a fun number for Evelyn, "Let's Misbehave" is much better at character, relationship, and plot advancement.

We don't just need to know Evelyn will loosen up; we need to know he's found his primal animal side ("we're merely mammals"), and also how perfectly he and Reno fit each other. Note that while Billy and Hope get songs about marriage ("De-Lovely") and chaste yearning ("All Through the Night"), Evelyn and Reno get a song about carnality. Evelyn doesn't invoke Romeo and Juliet, or Abelard and Heloise; no, he invokes Adam and Eve -- lovers in a state of pure nature, before morality, before judgment, before clothing. We are indeed in Shakespeare's woods here, and Reno and Evelyn are de-coupling from the wrong partners and re-coupling here with the right partners.

That's why we're here, after all. It's sort of parallel to A Midsummer Night's Dream, if you think of the starry night sky, or maybe Cole Porter's intoxicating score, as a substitute for Puck's magic drops. The show works less well without "Let's Misbehave" in that spot.

"Blow, Gabriel, Blow" runs head-on at one of the show's two main themes, the turning of religion into show business. You can read my deep dive into this song here.

"All Through the Night" has a fairly conventional early musical comedy point -- we can only be together in our dreams! In the '62 version, Billy and Hope sing exactly the same verses; in '34 the second verse was slightly altered. Though the lyric is fairly conventional, delivering no information we don't already have, dealing in awfully conventional images, the music is extraordinary.

I've always maintained that musicals are more powerful, more impactful, more emotional than plays, because of the abstract nature of music, the non-verbal language of emotion. "All Through the Night" lacks the irony of the rest of the score, but it works so well because the music tells us as much (or more) about Billy and Hope's feelings than the words do. Almost the entire main melody descends chromatically by half-steps, making the music feel like it doesn't have a home key, like the melody is just spinning out spontaneously, endlessly shifting back and forth between major and minor, happy and sad -- and sinking ever further down into despair. It's anchor-less, restless, uneasy, but also hauntingly beautiful.

The original version of the show used "All Through the Night" midway through Act I, as Billy and Hope's first song together. In that spot, it's too serious, too sincere for this crazy romp of a show, but repositioned here in Act II (where there was originally only a short reprise), it works beautifully.

"Be Like the Bluebird" may be my favorite song in the show. It's so crazy and so meta! Take a look at Mooney's intro verse:

There's an old Australian bush song,
That Melba used to sing,
A song that always cheered me
When I was blue.
Even Melba said this bush song
Was a helluva song to sing,
So be quiet whilst I render it for you...

There's so much that's funny about this. First, Mooney starts by invoking the famous Australian opera singer Dame Nellie Melba (for whom Melba Toast is named), who had just died in 1931. A "bush song" is an Australian folk song (one famous example of this is "Waltzing Matilda"). It's funny that this world famous opera singer would think this folk song is "a helluva song to sing" -- does that mean it's a great song or a hard song? After all, Mooney himself then sings it. And as we listen to it, we realize this is not an Australian bush song -- it's just a Cole Porter comedy number. But that intro turns the whole thing into a very wacky joke. Also, Mooney is singing about him singing here, just like Hope does in "De-Lovely"

And what's the lesson Mooney is trying to impart to Billy? Just to chill, to take life as it comes, to be more Zen. Again, what a funny lesson to come from this mediocre gangster who's nervous as a cat. The whole number is a big meta goof.

"Take Me Back to Manhattan," as good a song as it is, doesn't need to be here. They sing the same verse two and a half times, and it gives us virtually no information beyond that these New Yorkers would rather be in New York, instead of docking in London. On the other hand, it does sort of connect to the two interlocking love triangles -- Hope has to choose between Evelyn (London) and Billy (New York), and we know Evelyn himself has chosen New York (Reno). In fact, everybody will choose New York... other than Reno, I guess...

Maybe also, "Take Me Back to Manhattan" reminds us that we've been in Shakespeare's woods all night, a place of freedom and magic, but now that everyone is finding their correct partners, they will have to return to the world of the City with their newfound wisdom.

Yes, Anything Goes is very silly and somewhat old-fashioned, but it's also a lot more than that. This is a really well-constructed, satiric farce, and as you can see, these songs are much richer than they might appear.

The adventure continues...

Long Live the Musical!
Scott

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