Word: songe
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...showed the spark of real attraction. In the episode where Lucy finds out she is pregnant, she can't break the news to Ricky because he is too busy. Finally, she takes a table at his nightclub show and passes him an anonymous note asking that he sing a song, We're Having a Baby, to the father-to-be. As Ricky roams the room looking for the happy couple, he spies Lucy and moves on. Then he does a heartrending double take, glides to his knees and asks, voice cracking, whether it's true. Finishing the scene together onstage...
America at the century's dawn was a billboard of extravagant promise. And two new art forms, movies and the popular song, formed the flying wedge of American hegemony, sending a message of optimism and expansion all over the world. The movie narrative with its cozy moral, the 32-bar song of soaring sentiment and quick resolution--both sold love, success, assimilation. Romantic yearning and career striving were two sides of the same all-American ambition...
There was energy aplenty in these films and songs--an undying verve and assurance. But the energy was controlled, confined by the need for universal acceptance. In a homogenous culture you want everyone to see your movie, listen to your radio show, sing your song. That meant playing by the rules. Even the pioneer rebel Paul Robeson did that, speaking eloquently, singing handsomely, shrouding his revolutionary sexuality...
...cultures created new elites. Jewish-American composers like Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern invented the popular song and dominated the field for a swank half-century. And as they had borrowed from Scott Joplin and W.C. Handy, so did they help bring black artists into the mainstream. Billie Holiday and Charlie Parker ran their astounding riffs on the backs of sturdy pop tunes by Jewish immigrants. This fruitful collaboration continued throughout rock's first decade, as Jewish kids in the Brill Building wrote teen anthems for the Shirelles and the Ronettes--pop's twilight of multiracial synergy...
...could see the lingering lure of Astaire art in the reaction to Frank Sinatra's death. That wasn't just Rat Pack nostalgia. It was an effusion of fondness and respect for a fine song finely sung, for vocal connoisseurship, for the ability--the first or the thousandth time he sings a song--to mine the meaning of a lyric...