I don't know why I am doing a mind riff on this song, but I just can't shake it. Mad About The Boy deals with the theme of unrequited love for a film star. It was written to be sung by a female, but Coward also wrote a version with lyrics bent to the risqué topic of homosexual love:
Mad about the boy
I know it’s silly
But I’m mad about the boy
& even Dr Freud cannot explain
Those vexing dreams
I’ve had about the boy
When I told my wife
She said “I never heard such nonsense in my life!”
Her lack of sympathy
Embarrassed me
& made me frankly glad about the boy.
My doctor can’t advise me
He’d help me if he could
3 times he’s tried to psychoanalayse me
But it’s just no good
People I employ
Have the impertinence
To call me Myrna Loy
I rise above it
Frankly love it
‘Cos I’m absolutely
Mad about the boy
The song gained new popularity when Dinah Washington's rendition was used in the Levi's television advertisement " The Swimmer", directed by Tarsem Singh. In the commercial, which is homage to the1968 Burt Lancaster film The Swimmer, a young man runs through an American suburban neighborhood stripping down to only his jeans, invades private gardens & dives into a series of swimming pools in order to shrink his jeans. Washington's recording was re-released by Mercury as a tie-in in with the advertising campaign, & the cover art featured a shot of the topless male emerging from a swimming pool & bore the Levi's logo. The single made the Top 50 in the UK singles chart.
Other Notable Cover versions by:
Georgia Brown
Blossom Dearie
Marianne Faithfull
Frances Faye
Helen Forrest
Jackie Gleason
Lena Horne
Cleo Laine
Gertrude Lawrence
Beatrice Lillie
Julie London
Billy May
Carmen McRae
Anita O'Day
Eartha Kitt
Elaine Paige < Tom Robinson
Dinah Shore
Maxine Sullivan
Miss Piggy (as Mad About the Frog)
Showing posts with label Mad About The Boy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mad About The Boy. Show all posts
Monday, January 10, 2011
Lord Knows I'm Not A School Girl
This clip reminds me so much of my own life in the late 1960s. Oh, the parties that I attended! We have Yul Brynner in drag, in The Magic Christian (1969), singing, even better... lip-synching Peter Seller's voice, doing Noël Coward's Mad About The Boy. Can you spot all the celebs in this clip?
I'm mad about the boy
I know it's stupid to be mad about the boy
I'm so ashamed of it,
But must admit the sleepless nights I've had
About the boy
On the silverscreen
He melts my foolish heart in every single scene
Although I'm quite aware that here & there are traces of the cad
About the boy
Lord knows I'm not a fool girl, I really shouldn't care
Lord knows I'm not a school girl
In the fury of her first affair
Will it ever cloy
This odd diversity of misery & joy
I'm feeling quite insane & young again
& all because I'm mad about the boy
Mad about the boy,
It's pretty funny
But I'm mad about the boy.
He has a gay appeal that makes me feel
There's maybe something sad about the boy.
If I could employ
A little magic that will finally destroy
This dream that pains me & enchains me
But I can't because I'm mad...
I'm mad about the boy!
Noel Coward
1932
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
