Song of the Day: Anything Goes

The song of the day for Tuesday, October 3, 2017 is “Anything Goes.”

About This Song

In Anything Goes, Cole Porter and book writers Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse created one of the great musical comedy characters of all time: Reno Sweeney, played by Ethel Merman in the original 1934 production. The score contains many of Porter’s most popular songs, including “I Get a Kick Out You,” “You’re The Top,” and “Blow, Gabriel, Blow.”

About This Version

Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga chose “Anything Goes” as the first cut on their album Cheek to Cheek. Marion Evans did the big band arrangement.

“Anything Goes,” as well as Cheek to Cheek, is available from iTunes.

Here’s Miss Merman singing today’s song from the film version of Anything Goes!

Ethel Merman, born Ethel Agnes Zimmerman, grew up in Astoria, Queens. She learned secretarial skills in high school and after graduation in 1924, was able to get a job as a stenographer at $28 a week, which was good money in those days. With a pay check to back her up, she sang in clubs evenings and weekends in her goal of making it to Broadway.

In 1934, she was cast as Reno Sweeney in Cole Porter’s Anything Goes. When the script of Anything Goes was re-written during rehearsals, Ethel put her secretarial skills to good use by taking down dialogue in shorthand as the authors improvised. She then typed out the material herself.