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[tootsiemuppet.livejournal.com]

I got a Wodehouse biography from the library ("PG Wodehouse: A Literary Biography" by Benny Green) and anima_mecanique made me share this.

^_^

"But if the quarter-credit of Anything Goes was Wodehouse's modest swansong, it was not the end of his connection with the nebulous art of songwriting, not the end of his influence on fellow-writers. For the rest of his life he indulged in the occasional vanity of composing a lyric, usually for some non-existent tune in some fictitious setting. But the last of his efforts in this line was intended for production, in a still-born musical called Jeeves which was planned for his ninetieth year. In that year he revealed for the first time the lowly origins of his most famous character:

I view the future with concern,
On every side, at every turn
Disaster seems to stare on in the face.
For Mr Wooster is, it's plain,
In what he calls the soup again
And liable to sink without a trace.
At times like these when on the verge
of cataclysms I've an urge
To seek a spot where life runs calm and slow.
And find release and peace at last
In the quiet haven where I passed
My happy childhood days so long ago.

In Brixton,
In lovely Brixton
Which I long so to see.
Yearning
To be returning
To London S.E.
I feel my place is
In that oasis,
Home of all that's brave and free.
Where on each street
Are always found
Strong men with feet
Upon the ground,
Where in each breast
As all attest
There's a heart of gold beneath the rest.
In Brixton,
My heart is fixed on
And it's there I would be.

Comments

[rosamundeb.livejournal.com]

What a great lyricist! And a great find. What's this about partial credit for "Anything Goes"?

[tootsiemuppet.livejournal.com]

Ahem. Alright. This is an article he wrote in the New York Herald Tribune. I apologise aforehand for any typos, I just got up.


"I have many pleasant memories of the days when the show was being readied for production, but none I like to recall better than the episode of the drink at Le Tourquet. That was where we collaborators finally got together. At the outset we were rather a scattered bunch. I had a villa ar Le Tourquet on the Normandy coast of France. Guy [Bolton] was lving in Sussex, England, and Cole Porter, as far as I can remember, was in Heidelberg. It was Howard Lindsey, who was to direct the show, who suggested that it would be a good thing if we saw something of each other and had a conference or two, and he finally got us assembled at Le Tourquet, which seemed a good central meeting place.
The first thing Guy and I wanted to do, of course, was to hear the music, and as my villa contained no piano we all trooped down to the Casino, where there was one in a corridor leading off the gambling rooms. There the clicking of chips and croupier's calls competed with Cole's piano, bringing to our delighted ears the title song, 'You're the Top', and 'Blow, Gabriel, Blow'. Not only to our ears. Once, I recall, the door was pushed open by a pleasantly intoxicated young American socialite, who in his befuddled state concluded that Cole was a hired performer.
'Don't play that stuff,' he said. 'Play something good. Do you know "I Wonder Where My Baby Is Tonight"?' Cole did know it and played it without protest. Our visitor began to cry. 'That song hits me right here,' he said, thumping the region of his heart. 'Just been divorced, so can you blame me for wondering?'
We made sympathetic noises, and Cole played 'You're The Top'. The intruder came weaving back through the door.

[tootsiemuppet.livejournal.com]

'Forget that stuff,' he said. 'Do you know a number called 'The Horse With The Lavender Eyes"? It drove us down from the Plaza to the church. Dawn said the horse had lavender eyes.,' he continued brokenly. 'so we sang the dong all the way down the avenue. Dawn O'Day, that was her stage name, pretty, isn't it?'
He rose and laid a small column of 100-franc chips on top of the piano.
'What's that for?' we asked.
'For him,' he said, indicating Cole. 'He plays okay, but he picks out rotten numbers.'
The thought that will probably occur to anyone reading the programme of Anything Goes is that the management did not stint the public in the matter of authors. There are four of them -- count them, four -- not including Porter, who wrote the lyrics. The explanation is ready to hand.
The thing started as a Bolton-Wodehouse show, my own share in the melange of mirth and melody being confined, as I remember, to lending moral support. The rough work, the writing, was done by Guy, and I would look in on him from time to time and say, 'How are you getting on?' and he would say 'Fine', and I would go away and return a day or two later and say, 'How's it coming?' and he would say, 'Swell'.
So far, so good. But when it was shipped off to New York, we sustained a painful blow. Guy, with my help, had turned out an excellent book, but unfortunately it was aall about an oceanliner in peril on the high seas and it was just then that the Morro Castle tragedy occurred, rendering such a theme out of the question, and as neither of us could go to New York, each having a play of his own coming on in London, Vincent Freeedley, our manager, suggested that Lindsay should revamp the script. He called Crouse in as collaborator, and that was how your grandfather did his bit in the famous Lindsay-Crouse partnership which led to Life With Father.

[rosamundeb.livejournal.com]

*LOL*!!!!!!!!!!

And, may I say - Cole Porter is from (are you ready?) INDIANA! HA! *G*

[tootsiemuppet.livejournal.com]

I'm awful and was just amused by "Blow, Gabriel, blow." ahem.

I love him so so much. *twirl* whee! Plum.

I also found the lyric he wrote to a lovesong about a fellow called Bill, and I swear if you replace every Bill with a Bertie it fits wonderfully. I'm loving this thing so much.

[rosamundeb.livejournal.com]

Oooo! Share!!!

[tootsiemuppet.livejournal.com]

Insatiable, aren't you?

From Showboat *clears throat*

Along came Bill, who's not the type at all,
You'd meet him on the street and never notice him.
His form and face,
His manly grace,
Are not the kind that you
Would find in a statue,
And I can't explain,
It's surely not his brain
That makes me thrill.
I love him because he's wonderful,
Because he's just old Bill.
He's just my Bill, my ordinary boy,
He hadn't got a thing that I can brag about,
And yet to be
Upon his knee
So comfy and roomy
Feels natural to me.
And I can't explain,
It's surely not his brain
That makes me thrill.
I love him because he's - I don't know -
Because he's just my Bill.


.... alright, so it was just for the "it's surely not his brain" line.

There's another, earlier version in Oh, Lady! Lady! which has a lot of the same bits in it, but the beginning goes:

I used to dream that I would discover,
The perfect lover,
Some day.
I knew I'd recognize him if he ever came round my way.
I always used to fancy then,
He'd be one of the godlike kind of men,
With a giant brain and noble head,
Like the heroes in the books I read.

[rosamundeb.livejournal.com]

*L*! Giant brain and noble head - that's Jeeve all right! *G*

[tootsiemuppet.livejournal.com]

Look what I found!!!

"Jeeves, Reginald; valet; b. c. 15 October 1881, Brixton; s. of Basil Jeeves (philologist) and Daisy Wiggins (barmaid of the 'The Cow and Crescent')
Previous employers: Esmond Haddock, JP; Dame Daphne Winkworth; the Earl of Worplesdon; Digby Thistleton
Clubs: Junior Ganymede
Hobbies: shrimping at Herne bay
Address: c/o Bertram Wilberforce Wooster, Berkeley Mansions, W1"

!!!!

We have to celebrate Jeeves's birthday on the 15th!!

[rosamundeb.livejournal.com]

*LOL*!!!! But what is that from???

[tootsiemuppet.livejournal.com]

The same book. *cough* I'm not so much reading it as reading bits and parts.

But omg!!

I need to get him a birthday present!

And his father was a philologist!!! Whose name was BASIL! Eee!

[queen-oblivia.livejournal.com]

he also had several collaborations with Jerome Kern. the one that springs to mind first is a show called "Sitting Pretty"