Fascinatin' Rhythm; Drinking Songs / Sing to Swing

National broadcast of fascinating rhythm is made possible by the members of WXXI FM Rochester New York. A. This is fascinating rhythm songs from the Golden Age of American song by Michael Lasser. When the subject of drinking comes up you're often talking not so much about whiskey or wine but about sociable people gathering in a bar or coming together to celebrate something important and happy. You may also be making jokes about drunks.

You may even be addressing a serious social problem regardless of your point of view though you'll find an image an example of what you've got in mind in a popular song. Our songs are filled with references to good cheer and our nineteenth century forebears often used popular music to condemn John Barleycorn. So you may not want to be driving while you listen to an hour of songs about lifting the glass or smashing the bottle. If you want to give the show a title Why not turn to Sigmund Romberg and Dorothy Donnelly score for The Student Prince in Heidelberg. The prince and his friends have gathered in the beer hall surrounded by lovely friendly young waitresses as they raise their Stein's. The prince leads them in a toast to their sweethearts even though they sing about a future of love and happiness. The song feels as if it's about being young and alive in the moment it fills the stage with melody and youthful optimism and certainty. This is Mario Lanza and the chorus with drink drink drink.

I mean you. Know you. See. There's all up. This. Is so. Sweet. Let's. Talk slow. Slow slow. Slow slow slow slow.

Slow slow slow slow slow slow slow slow was. Allowed all. It's just lovely to see you soon. I think. That was subtle. AS.

Soon as the. Solo sun comes all over the sun to see you soon. Super. Mario ends up with drink drink drink from the mid 20s to the mid 80s from operetta to high tech spectacle from violins to synthesizers from the Student Prince to Les Miz. But the song types remain pretty much the same. Once again students gather for a few moments before they return not to their books but this time to the barricades

the moment as ominous as these young men look not to the future but the past. Aside from a passing moment of humor they lift their glasses to confirm their own convictions. From Les Miserables. This is drink with me. Drink with you to sing with the soul of things we do here for you. Here's to your kids who when you walk that

used to used to drink with me. To take he's gone. You fee to remember or you wouldn't you. Could join. Didn't. Mean wasn't told. I. Just want. To eat. That. Stupid.

Shit. She goes across the US with meat. Eat your own would you. We home. And Toni Kroos Hello drink with me. Lerner in Lowe's movie she begins with the portrayal of Gigi herself as a gawky adolescents who will

eventually grow up to win the heart of guest on the gusto still thinks of she she is a child. He lets her have a few sips of his wine. She soon becomes tipsy and she guessed on her grandmother turned an ordinary afternoon into a kick up your heels celebration. Leslie Caron her mind to getting gold and Louise your dam with the night they invented champagne. What time tomorrow will we get there. Can I watch you play roulette that I still can't believe it was the books. Seen. Through taxes like. Say. See China. Does everybody celebrated. Phillips in dissipated easy to miss if. You are upset. No. I'm not complaining. That take us and. Chop. It up beyond. The rules. I cannot remember. When I have to.

Give up the NIC. In fact he said it can be feeling like being in fancy Chevy. Chase flight. This chap shall keep the ends. Of the. Tube. Next. They. Invent to show. That the excuse it can be. Too good. To. Be. Real. Leslie can roam her mind again golden Louise your damn the night they invented

champagne hanging around in the bar eventually leads to a toast even if you're already tipsy. You usually need a reason to drink a birthday an anniversary a happy holiday. But these folks are drinking because they like to so they drink a toast to the ones they like most from ankles away. Betty Keane and Lou Parker with a final toast. Heres to dear old us. And drinks my last. Day are already being. That's beautiful feels nice you want to die. We. Want to scream. So the. Only reason that season.

What do we know.

Next my. Buddy Keenan Lou Parker hears to dear old us the good ole boys and rednecks who populate country music appear in sanitized versions and Pump Boys and die nets rural Southerners who run a garage on a

state highway. They spend most of their time talking singing drinking moonshine and generally fooling around in a very likable way. After working all day it's time to have fun. So the pump boys invite the Dine that's to join them for dancing to the hits on the barroom jukebox. Forget your don'ts and do's they say and put on your drinkin shoes. Here's the cast of Pump Boys and die nets. I've been working all day and i'm done by to get to you to know you've got to. Drinking they got it so sure it will lose all that. Don't like. Them. Yeah that sounds good to you.

You got to drink she drank she get you down if you can follow that. If they had something against you. Today. You. May have. Died. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Me me. Me I think

I might end up back. Not. If I'm. Not on you. From Pump Boys and die nets drink in shoes. Here's a story of Faded Love and faded memory and how a sad song can make them linger in the mind. The bar's a place for the down and out populated by broken cowboys and fallen angels. It's a smoky hard drinking crowd but eventually the one known as cowboy would request the late night benediction as she sang in the smoke floated around her raven hair. Everyone stopped to

listen. Everyone in the y'all come back saloon these are the Oak Ridge Boys. She says they really are is a sick verging will see most of the world still eased a little young to vote was requested by the man she Scout mole was a late night. Big shot. Y'all come back saloon. In the old salt trying to sing her song. Cavil has a small sort of the right. To. Leave my. Head. At all the fall pinball play. Ground. Stop again just the. Bullet. Hole loses.

Radiated love. A man raised a hand. Causing a plane to crash. LOL LOL. Lol. She. Is. Thinking back. On. The. Good days in the face of this. News. Some. Of the leading song TV's. Wall. Old. Cowboy. Reach with a scythe for Jane Doe. She must have the words to release de young but was most requested by the man she was

Calpol was a late night. An addiction. Y'all come back saloon. Me. A. Long. Long. Way. John. Young. Django. Says. The Oak Ridge Boys with y'all come back saloon the conviviality of toasting and friendship is certainly more compatible with laughter than sadness

because drinking loosens us. And more often than not makes us both giddy and foolish. He becomes the subject of humor. Think of how many jokes would cease to exist if we eliminated bar rooms and drunks. So listen to this comic story song about a boozy encounter with a poor signed friend. The Ambrose orchestra with the pig got up. Mary Show me. The pink way. Yes

yes. I also remember that of course without it that is quite subtle. So where is your old faithful from the area. Nobody walks away. Yet. Judy.

I could get it for me to say that. The Ambrose orchestra the pig got up and slowly walked away.

Drunkenness was so serious a problem in mid 19th century America that our populace songwriter's addressed it with high seriousness. The years immediately after the Civil War produced predictably escapist songs. But even then an important composer like Henry Clay work produced the most important temperance song of its time. It's a melancholy tale about a young girl sent three different times to fetch her father from the neighborhood tavern. The style is melodramatic. The dominant emotion path from 1864 Joan Maurice sings come home father. You see.

Since we were little THIS IS US. Yes he will speak.

This is the. Point. MYSIS.

Oh yes. You're beat.

This. Week. That was Joe Morris with come home father. You're listening to Fascinating Rhythm songs from the Golden Age of popular songs by Michael Lassiter. This second 19th century song has the sort of happy go lucky feel you'd

expect in a drinking song. But the melody is ironic. He uses the style of the drinking song in the service of Temperance the singer and his wife live out in the country where they do virtually nothing but drink his clothes are torn and ragged and his friends have turned against him but blissfully and more and more boisterous Lee he continues to drink. This is Little Brown Jug. My wife and daughter I live in a little log we call our own. She can tell you one way Watson from the little brown jungle beat around jungle trying to steal. That makes me wear old clothes to she makes my friends live here you are so near mine goes up and down she goes.

The little brown jumped out of the gate with the Little Brown Jug don't I love the roses red my nose is to love violets blue and soon Who are you. And yet I think before I stopped we'd better I'll drop you. I love you. The little brown jungle tide will be if I tell the kids I'm closer in the mind like the choices are forty times cooler will run show time of the day. Little Brown Jug don't I love it. Richard Perry Little Brown Jug one of the worst scandals of Ulysses Grant's presidency was a juicy combination a booze bribery and blackmail. The Whiskey Ring of crooked politicians who lined their pockets with money for liquor licenses in 1876 and anonymous

songwriter wrote a cynically humorous lyric about the scandal the populist song as social weapon. This is crooked whiskey. I was to the side seat up long the polite thing to do. The riot teeth awful rethinks just think you wouldn't think this were all the cuts to the quick peacekeeping Cluff. Thing. Hey Jude. Getting. Food. Food. Food. Food. It comes to me.

We all used to take the ball to meet this guy. I. Want to meet him. He still brings me to meet me in the field with charm. The thing.

That was Richard Perry again with crooked whiskey bars did a remarkable business just before they closed down at the start of prohibition in 1920 the wets and dries had been at war for 75 years and for now at least the drys had won. The singer in the next song is distressed but his friend Johnny Jones never wears a frown. You don't need the wine to have a wonderful time Johnny explains. As long as they make those beautiful girls from the 1906 felt follies This is Eddie Cantor. When you say that I am a. God.

I am me. I was. Adam and he may be a great day. We waited. And they were a you know. We like to drink things to make them be OK. I let them make me feel the same way. I know you know me so well late. Last week I dropped out of my house with a can you know having a good time. So I and a liquor Emporium.

And. Say when I came out. All I had left of my. Well. What I had and. I that's a beautiful. Oh it was a beautiful Go. We damn well she was and I smiled. And she smiled at me. And I said sorry. I said where are you going my pretty mate. And today he said no place in particular. So I said to take a walk in the park. And to be sent for. So that was all that. We went to the prom. And to. Sat on the band. And. Oh my you have a beautiful life. And. He looked at. Me. And I looked at the hot. And then I realized that. You don't know. I mean that was really it wasn't

the family old. Man any man the right. Hand man. You know. Some people like to laugh at them tired want to make something. Bill Bennett and I'm tired. No you don't. I was right at the moment I'm smiling like so cute. And he cancer you don't need the wind to have a wonderful time. Here's a drinking song sung by Johnny Mercer who was known to open the bottle from time to time. It's the kind of hyperbole you'd expect from someone who's swearing fidelity while he does a bit of bobbing and weaving alone and stranded. He performs heroic deeds to return to the one he loves his Mercer with a touch of bibulous whimsy. I've been floating down the old Green River. And there was.

There. Then followed.

Johnny Mercer I've been floating down the old Green River after a night of drinking and carousing. It's time for Jerry Lee to apologize. He drank too much and played the fool and said some things he shouldn't have. It's not the way he usually behaves. And he's truly sorry. He bragged too loud and picked a fight and he's never going to do it again. The song setting and its style of both honkytonk with Jerry Lee Lewis is the singer you might expect some

rockabilly. That combination of rock and country. But this is Dixie landing country with a passel of western swing thrown in for good measure. Jerry Lee Lois. It was the whiskey talking. Not me. Mister. I still lead the quiet. Oh I do. Not now. And then the next thing. Good.

Thing. I'm at. Home. OK. Yes. I would. Currently. Talk a lot may allāh you.

I. Love the hand that thank. God I'm glad. To. Know a lot of you. Love the work. And all. The bad. You got. To. Love. Again. Jerry Lee Lewis it was the whiskey talking not me. Here's a lover's

quarrel when he shows up late she accuses him of drinking and infidelity. He protests he hasn't touched a drop. He wanted to keep his eyes clear so he could see her face. How did she resist him. From the 1962 musical make a wish he were a Helen Gallagher and Harold lying with that face. Where were you last night after the ball looking for you baby looking for me. Probably drunk again and with someone else. Never touched a drum last night. I had stuck to some plum last night. No way to send that ignoring it. As a sympathetic pain while others was all cupped it up I all is sad and knotted up. But savored every bit. Congress are still players.

I keep getting. My face told the whole as you will be face to smother face is. A face that. Was I was.

Thanks Sam. And still. Keep. Patients. As a graduation. It's. Tough to draw. Was the. Son. Of. The ill. The exact cuts.

That I. Was up end up. Wanting. That. I was. Helen Gallagher and Harold Lange that face a broken heart and

disillusion and making the round seem to go together. You're buying drinks for strangers and ordering an old fashioned for yourself. Hold the fruit and even the bitters throughout the songs you're feeling sorry for yourself hoping against hope that she'll appear. These are saloon songs full late at night. Hugh Shannon with make it another old fashion please. And drinking again. Since I've been all the WAG and now I. Am. Certain. Drinking is a major crime. All when you lay off the liquor. You feel so much slicker. That it. Is most of the time. But there are moment sooner or later. When it gets tough. I gotta say me not to say. Wait a.

WAITER. May get enough. Facts to. Make him not a. Dumb pull old fashioned The. Leg good. WATTERS do. The jaw and the dissolution crews. Make it all one of love. You refuse. She. Wants to hide in my castle. I raise a submarine. And a whole. Lot of. Cats. Fell down I haven't heard her. Click is a lightening fly. My. Castle. Began to cry. And I. Made good. Oh. Leave leave it up

or just get it. Leave her out to you all right. Leave out the video. And make it straight. Ah. That's was done. Through. To. Me. My. Hand. Wishing. You were here. In the. Us. To. Love you. All. Who.

Sure I'm small. Son. So. But. At the. End of it. Oh I. Think getting a. Leg. For. My. Leg to get on. With. Us. Oh you're. Kidding. Hugh Shannon make it another old fashion please. And drinking again

common expressions are grist for the lyric writers male songwriters to mirror yours to the way we talk to the slang that floats in and out of the language to the expressions that stick to the possibilities for persuasion innovation and suggestion in the ways we speak. So you take the earthy ironic toast. Here's mud in your eye and you transform it into an equally earthy ironic love song. It creates a sharply drawn point of view for the singer Lee Wiley with Hiers love in your eye. And they did not end when we'd. Made me eat it.

We. Were. Hit with. A. Even with the mud in your eye it should be pretty clear by now that songwriters have found still

another way to absorb popular behavior and the variety of popular attitudes into popular music. Temperance and indulgence drinking a toast and drowning your sorrows. They're all part of American popular song. They steal bases the technical director. I'm Michael Lasser the show's fascinating rhythm and a rhythm pick you know the. Fascinating Rhythm is a production of WXXI FM Rochester New York for a playlist of this week's show. Send a stamped self-addressed envelope to WXXI FM Kara fascinating rhythm box 21 Rochester New York 1 4 6 0 1. The night they. Invented. Shall. You. Explain is it going to be.

Behind us. We sing while we drink and we drink while we say I'm Michael Lasser. Join me for a fascinating rhythm and an hour of songs for raising the glass or smashing the bottle. Hello. You. Can. Demand right there. And this is from. National broadcast of fascinating rhythm is made possible by the members of

WXXI FM Rochester New York. And. This is fascinating rhythm songs from the Golden Age of American song by Michael Lasser from the mid 30s to the early 40s. Most singers rose to prominence with the big bands that cut the records and toured the country from coast to coast. But during the war the bands had to give up touring. Some even folded when they couldn't get gas and their musicians went into the service.

The war didn't kill big bands though it simply hastened the inevitable. Many of them had become tired and predictable. It was time for new forms and new sounds. As the public turned to the more intimate more personalized styles of individual singers who had begun to emerge during the war years many of the band singers didn't make it is solo performers after the war not because they weren't good enough but because the audience was no longer interested in the boys singers breathy crooning or the girl singers hard edged rhythm tunes. What Bob Eberly and Helen O'Connell did so well with Jimmy Dorsey's band soon gave way to the styles of Perry Como and Doris Day. Here's an example of what got left behind. Jimmy Dorsey's orchestra with Bob Everly and Helen O'Connell and green eyes. With my.

Promise. To my soul Long live the. Dream. And. Live. With it through. The week. That in my eyes your. Whole happiness. You're. The world. Meet.

Me. In my first. Job was. Very. Hard. For. Me. Meet. Up With meet. Bob Eberly and Helen O'Connell with green eyes. None of the young singers who

emerged after the war took fuller advantage of the new interest in recordings than Perry Como. His singing style was relaxed and detached yet it was warm and convincing more suited for recordings radio and television than movies and personal appearances. They magnified and enhanced his likable modest manner until it became as important as his warm the limited voice with performers like Como. We began to think we knew the singers as individuals. His first two records marked the first time any artist had 2 million record sellers released at the same time. The songs were if I loved you until the end of time. This is till the end of time. The longest

stars serve in the blue zone is the ring of virtue saying gold. Loungers roses bloom and. I love. Her every. Day. And just for you to care for you through laughter. Tenderly.

Poll. Shows from home and it are for you to care for you. Will.

Perry Como till the end of time. If anything Doris Day's voice was even softer and smoother than Perry Como's she caressed a song transforming the increasingly overblown ballads of the post-war years into something like cotton candy. Her emotional range was narrow and she lacked the sense of rhythm and the drive of top big band singers like Helen Ward and Martha Tilden. But she invested love songs with an innocence and eagerness that enhanced their repeal and helped define the times as settled and reassuring for 948 this is its magic. He.

Was. Rushed to. It soon. Miss it. Still. Oh no. It's. Speed. Drops.

No. It's. True. It.

Was. A. Was. The thickness. Doris Day with Julie Stein and Sammy cons it's magic. The single most important singer of the mid 40s emerged as a band singer in

1940 left bands singing in 1942 and was a major star by 1944. Frank Sinatra's first hit record with Tommy Dorsey's band is over 50 years old now. The arrangement was unusual in its emphasis on his singing rather than on Dorsey's band with a middle chorus by the featured vocalist as early as 1940. Dorsey understood however reluctantly that singers were playing an increasingly important role in the music business. This recording features Frank Sinatra singing and Tommy Dorsey's bowing to the inevitable. The song is I'll never smile again. Frank Sinatra I'll never smile again. When Sinatra left the Dorsey

band in 42 he was anything but an overnight success. In fact he cut a few recordings that did poorly and appeared briefly in a movie and on the radio. But then he appeared at the Paramount Theater the rest comprises one of the most important and influential careers in the history of American music. Sinatra soon signed with Columbia Records for whom he recorded two hundred eighty one songs over 10 years. Among his first hits still during the war where you'll never know. And Sunday Monday and always the week. Oh are.

You. Speak. To us or.

You. Who are. You.

You're. Used to.

This is true.

The. Frank Sinatra with Harry Warren and Matt Gordon's you'll never know. And James Van Heusen and Johnny Burke Sunday Monday and always for the rest of the 40s Sonata remain the country's leading male vocalist. There were movies recordings and radio and impressive string of hits until his career dipped in the early 50s and rebounded stronger than ever before the decade's end. But the sweetness of the young Sinatra his voice his supreme confidence with the lyric and the intimacy

and irreverence of his style defined him for us well before his life became a roller coaster. This is the theme song he chose for his radio show in 1947. Frank Sinatra put your dreams away.

You're listening to Fascinating Rhythm songs from the Golden Age of popular songs by Michael Lasser. If Sinatra success helped to emphasize and liberate male band singers Helen Forrest had the same effect on female singers performers like forest and Dewayne and Helen Ward were too good to be limited to looking like somebody's kid sister and singing nothing but jump tunes. The band would play then the boy singer would croon the melody. Then the tempo would change usually And finally the girl singer got to do something. Helen Forrest insisted on singing a song by herself she insisted on singing ballads and she made it

stick. It was Harry James trumpet and then it was Helen Forrest and that was it. This is I had the craziest dream. To.

Give. You. New. You. To. You. You.

Are and. I am. I am. Helen Forrest I had the craziest dream because most of the important singers of these years came from either the big bands or from jazz. They were used to singing with a strong rhythmic accompany mint. But beginning in the mid 40s and continuing for a decade popular songs placed less and less emphasis on

rhythm and more and more on the elaborateness of the arrangements. Even that Cole wasn't immune though he came to popular singing from jazz. Once he began to record with a lush orchestral background his trio and his own piano playing became secondary. Several of his early ballads were unusual in subject matter none more so than his first major success. This is Nat Cole with nature boy. It was. A very strange and chatted boy. They say he won over.

Little saw. And sat. Very. Well. And then one day. A magic day he passed my way. And we spoke of many things. This he said to me. Being a. Great thing. You ever. Just to be sure.

And really. Great it is when. You Larry. Is just to eat a lot. And read. I am. Not

coal with nature boy as people tired of conventional big bands and crooners style became more and more important to recordings. Rejecting the restraints of crooning led to overblown arrangements and the emergence of singers who styles were much more assertive than we'd been used to those solo singers should have felt more intimate than big bands these singers were often highly idiosyncratic and as a result surprisingly impersonal in their relationship with their audience. That trend intensified as time passed but early in his career a singer as distinctive as Frankie Laine could still touch an audience with a love song like that's my desire. To eat. The. We span. He. Never. A.

Minute. With. Night. To me. She's. Down. To can face. Down still. Smiling. We. See. What. She's doing. You know.

You. Listen. To. Shit. You so. Much. You.

Know. It's time. To go. He did. My duty. Frankie Laine wasn't the sort of singer you'd ever expect to hear with a big band. He needed in the arrangement that suited his own style. When I think about him I visualize his large hands held close together in front of his body as he bit off the words. The singing was large intense and unrestrained almost as soon as that's my desire reach the hit parade lane recorded a group of

unlikely hits that are primarily a tribute to his insistent style. None of them was a conventional love song and each was different from the others. Yet all of them suited lanes assertive belting. After That's My Desire he had three hits in a row That Lucky Old Sun the cry of the Wild Goose and mule train this is Mule Train to. There's a. Great

one to see. Let me let me. Put up with some that. Feel. The air.

Frankie Laine mule train Helen Forrest may have influenced female singers in terms of becoming independent but the women who came after her had strikingly different styles. They were less individualistic than the men. Also less quirky less defined by style itself. They paid their dues in the bands and on radio when Dinah Shore got to New York from Tennessee. Before the war she sang briefly with several band leaders until anti-cancer heard her and signed her for his popular radio program. Her manner was girlish her voice sweet but full she could dominate a song though she often preferred to coax it. Like most of her important contemporaries she could do novelty songs and ballads. Here are two of her big hits buttons and bows and lavender blue.

East and west I chose. This prairie grown. Big. Box where I belong. Hurts my. Bones hurts.

Let's Sandlin that. And then 10 p.m. Eastern Trenton where women are women and so close and close on French film that rocks and buttons and buttons and buttons on. That. Desk. You.

Could. Also do it. And in a church. You. Love. Big boy.

If you were delayed. And it. Was. In a bird. Would. You.

Dinah Shore buttons and bows and lavender blue if there was a major female stylist emerging after the war it had to be Peggy Lee. She'd served a long apprenticeship with bands in clubs and on local radio stations until she joined the Benny Goodman band in the early forties. She says of her years on the road I learned more about music from the men I worked with in bands than I've learned anywhere else. She first came to public attention when she recorded this song with Goodman. Why don't you do right. Why am I on

the. Earth. The. Land and my planet. To the women who love you. Why don't you do. Them in and get me some too. You said Nan one on one it's not. But you don't. Get me to.

You that prepared 20 years or goal. You wouldn't be. THE MAN. And get me to. Yours. Didn't you and I knew that you didn't think it.

And why don't you. Get me to do. Peggy Lee. Why don't you do right. During her long years on the road Lee was developing a distinctive style a subdued intimate minimalist delivery that suggests more than it says that whispers and insinuates its way to the heart of a song she only hints at emotion. Yet she brings it to life in 1944. She left Goodman to become a soloist never a star always a singer singer Peggy Lee is still singing in the early 1990s. This is one of her first hits as a soloist. It's a good day.

Yes it's a good week for saying the song and it's a good day for moving along. Yes it's a good day. Could anything be wrong on a good day for Mona. And it was and it's a good day for losing the blues ever again. And love and a good day. From my own until last. I said to the south I mounted my. Son to. Rise and sounded Dave. You know you gotta get blown group. You got. The good book and your children it's a good book you're on your you thought they could be and feel way that

you was a good day from Monod last. Week. Thanks. To. The. Good mom.

As And Santa do you know you do not make. You. Feel in a good book paying your bills and the pay was a good day for mom and. That felt good. Peggy Lee it's a good day for the first time in the mid 40s the gauge of the song success was how many records it sold. More important than sheet music. More important than the fact that it came from Broadway or a movie. How many kids lay down their dollars to buy it. In the process these buyers created a new generation of singers and new styles of singing. The swing

era was over and popular music moved on. They say the technical director. I'm Michael Lasser the show's Fascinating Rhythm and really. Fascinating Rhythm Fascinating Rhythm. Fascinating Rhythm is a production of WXXI FM Rochester New York for a playlist of this week's show. Send a stamped self-addressed envelope to WXXI FM Kara fascinating rhythm box 21 Rochester New York 1 4 6 0 1. Let. Me.

Know when the big bands disappear during World War Two individual singers replace them as tastes in popular music changed by Michael lesser. Join me for Fascinating Rhythm as we move from swaying to sing lead.