There have been some great lyricists over the years: the Gilbert of Gilbert & Sullivan, the Ira of Gershwin and Gershwin, Cole Porter, Dylan, Lennon & McCartney, Carole King… why their numbers are legion. But some lyricists remain unsung, like that fellow who put the ram in the ram-a-lang-a-ding-dong. Well, actually I guess he was sung, but you know what I mean, we still don’t know who he was. So tonight, we celebrate two unsung lyricists whose nuanced and inventive lyrics have withstood the test of time, in the sense that you can still find them on youtube, and both are potential earworms.
Anybody can write stuff like Anything Goes, but it takes a guy with guts to pair words like Hanky, Panky, line and time and pack them with meaning many layers deep.
But that effort pales next to the inventiveness displayed in this gem from the 60s, and yes, I just love the audiences and dancers in these old Shindig shows. We’re we really like that? Actually, no we weren’t, but I guess we must have wanted to be like that, and I’m not sure which is worse.
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