Bill

[wotwotleigh.livejournal.com]

Hope this is not too off-topic, but I just had to share it.

P. G. Wodehouse had a gift for writing lyrics, and -- along with Jerome Kern and Guy Bolton -- he helped create the modern American musical. I just found this absolutely heartbreaking performance of his song "Bill", from the 1936 version of Show Boat. The singer is Helen Morgan. I just can't stop listening to it. (PS - Notice the description of her hypothetical ideal man in the introductory verse!)

ETA: Okay, I'm going to try this one more time. *shakes fist and LiveJournal* While I'm on the subject of Wodehousian music, I wanted to share this as well. I recently found footage of tenor Frank Titterton singing "The Yeoman's Wedding Song", a song that Bertie mentions several times in the books. This was apparently something that Bertie had to sing a number of times at school events/village concerts as a youth, and he claims in at least one story that he pulled it off pretty well. Having heard the song . . . that's pretty impressive. I wonder if this is something Wodehouse had to perform at some point when he was a young man.

ETA 2: My attempt to embed that didn't work, so here's the link.

By the way, the British Pathe website is well worth exploring. There's all kinds of rare and fascinating footage there, a lot of it from the general period of the Jeeves and Wooster stories.