Over the course of his career Frank Sinatra recorded and performed numerous Cole Porter songs, most famously “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”, I Get a Kick out of You”, and “Night and Day.” Tonight’s amusement en route to the Tips, the next installment of our summer series of songs about particular cities, was recorded in 1958 as part of the sessions for the Come Fly With Me album but was not included on the original LP; in 1996, Capitol Records released it on the retrospective compilation CD Frank Sinatra Sings the Select Cole Porter. Backed by the orchestral arrangements of Billy May, here’s Frank Sinatra swinging his way through Cole Porter’s tribute to the City of Lights called I Love Paris.
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Last month Clara Cannucciari, star of the online series Great Depression Cooking, walked us through the steps required in the preparation of the tasty, nutritious, and inexpensive Poorman’s Meal. Tonight, she provides some modest advice and answers a few of her viewers’ questions about life, food, and happiness, in a segment called Clara answers her fan mail.
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Tonight’s amusement en route to the tips is a song about loss of faith in the goodness of human nature. The beautifully simple fan-made video that accompanies it is powerfully affecting because it artfully goes right to the heart of the song, which isn’t a lyrical examination of, or treatise on, sadness and disappointment, but rather an expression of the purely emotional state wherein loss of faith and trust feels monumental, absolute, and permanent. From the 1997 release The Boatman’s Call, here’s Nick Cave singing People Ain’t No Good.
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The Buddy Deane Show was a Baltimore-based television program that aired in the late 50s/early 60s. Patterned after American Bandstand, the show featured white-bread teenagers dancing on camera to the latest pop songs (and sometimes even singing their own songs) while Deane and his co-host moved merchandise during breaks in the action. Tonight’s amusement en route to the tips is an in-studio promotional spot for an exciting and remarkable product that, as you’ll see, provided hours and hours of fun for the whole family: here’s the perky Nancy Rogers urging viewers to go out and purchase the latest absolute-gotta-have-it invention called the Bob-A-Loop.
Wowee. Please remain calm.
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The growth of no-frills budget airlines in the UK over the last twenty years or so has enabled hundreds of thousands of pleasure-seeking Brits to jet their way to inexpensive holiday/party destinations in Spain, Poland, Estonia, Turkey and elsewhere for very little money. The downside for these travelers, of course, is that they get the sort of flights they pay for – or rather, they don’t get what they don’t pay for. In tonight’s amusement en route to the Tips, the comical cabaret trio Fascinating Aïda, comprised of Dillie Keane (the lead singer in the middle with the Irish Brogue), Liza Pulman, and Adéle Anderson, grumble robustly about the feckety rip-off known as Cheap Flights.
(Note: the song ends at the 4:10 mark, at which point a two-minute advertisement/merch-promo is tacked on.)
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Tonight’s amusement en route to the Tips is a little happy-foot dance number in the Western Swing tradition. Accompanied by some vintage 1930’s (I’m guessing) sepia photographs of dancers at house parties, here’s laid-back Turkey, Texas hometown boy Bob Wills and the rest of The Texas Playboys singing the vigorously cordial Stay All Night (Stay A Little Longer).
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About fifteen years ago I was walking on a dirt road just north of Hinton, Alberta when I saw Great Grey Owl sitting not more then twenty-five feet away on a fence post. I was floored by its shockingly (to me) large size, striking facial expression and unperturbed demeanor; I suspect that anyone who’s been fortunate enough to see an owl at fairly close range would agree that they are amazing and beautiful creatures. Tonight’s amusement, from the same folks at Peterson Field Guides who brought us the previously featured video about woodpeckers, is an interesting and informative short video about our feathered friends the Owls.
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A couple of days ago I stumbled across an interesting YouTube channel that hosts an extensive collection of national anthems with English subtitles. Most of the anthems are remarkably similar, with common themes of pride, honour, beauty, and the duty to stand up for and defend the great nation. The Chinese national anthem, though, written in 1934 and used as the anthem since 1949, stands out from the rest by virtue of sounding entirely like a fighting song; its lyrics are more about mortal peril and unnamed enemies than about the country itself. Here, with English subtitles, is the March of the Volunteers.
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Tonight’s amusement en route to the Tips is the next installment in the series of songs about cities. This one was released 37 years ago, and has since become a part of popular culture in Los Angeles, where it’s commonly played in sports arenas when the local team wins. From the 1983 album Trouble In Paradise, here’s Randy Newman driving around with the top down and singing the unusually (for him) up-tempo I Love LA. He loves it!
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Tonight’s amusement en route to the Tips is a song about changing perspectives, loss of innocence and friendships, and the fragile wisdom that hangs by a thread on the other side. Since the weather has been highly changeable this summer, and there’s been a lot of clouds getting in the way – at least where I’m living – I figure it’s a good time for this one: from 1970, here’s the beautiful and talented Joni Mitchell in a live solo performance of Both Sides Now.
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David Frost’s groundbreaking TV show The Frost Report was on-air for only two seasons in the mid 1960s, but the writers and performers he brought in – Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin, John Cleese, Antony Jay (the co-writer of Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister), the Two Ronnies (Barker and Corbett), Marty Feldman, and others – would go on to influence British comedy for decades to come.
Harvard-spawned American musical satirist Tom Lehrer was another Frost Report regular; his current events-oriented songs were perfectly suited to the topical nature of the show, and the light-hearted form of his black humour was always good for a laugh. Tonight’s amusement en route to the Tips sees Lehrer on a later British TV show performing a jaunty ditty about, erm, interconnectedness called I Got It From Agnes.
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In the ongoing interest of keeping it – mostly – light for the summer, tonight’s amusement en route to the tips is a vintage, entertainment district-style “pickup bar” song. The raunchy sax and loosely-flailing, sleazy mid-tempo drums are strictly standard-issue; what makes the song a real standout is the sizzling vocal, with its unique combination of “businesslike” and “smoky.”
From the compilation album Las Vegas Grind Part 1, here’s a 1963 recording of The Vikings (I can find no biographical information on them) performing Nicotine.
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Tonight’s featured amusement en route to the tips is a 1960s televised performance of an old English folk song about tragic love. Backed by the Clancy Brothers, including Liam on nylon-string guitar, here’s the late Tommy Makem standing up to sing his heartfelt rendition of The Butcher Boy.
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Tonight’s amusement en route to the tips features some archival footage of what was almost certainly the most hotly-contested Presidential campaign in US history. The year was 1956, and Popeye, who was running under the banner of the Spinach Party, was neck and neck with Bluto, the head of the Blutocratic Party. Well into the election day vote count, while the respective candidates were still campaigning furiously, a scrolling news ticker on the side of a building brought a shocking and highly dramatic piece of news:

Votes tied for Popeye and Bluto – no ballot yet from Miss Olive Oyl – only resident of Green Country – her vote will decide election.

For amateur historians interested in campaign strategy and the politics of personality, it doesn’t get any better than the riveting short film Popeye For President.
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While looking back at the Reader Tips amusements of the last few years I noticed a dearth of Czech artists singing Rolling Stones songs in German. It’s time to rectify that once and for all: from the 1969 album In Einer Welt Für Uns Zwei, here’s Czech superstar Karel Gott belting out Rot Und Schwarz.
You’re welcome.
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Tonight’s amusement en route to the Tips is the fifth in the summer series of songs about cities. In the previous entries the cities were praised in part for the kind of people who live there – “folks treat you kind” in Bowling Green, folks “don’t treat you mean” in Abilene, while Chicago has “people who smile at you” – but tonight’s selection is a paean to the city as a stand-alone monument, practically, whose physical features – its location above the blue and windy sea, its little cable cars, and its morning fog – inspire contented longing. From 1962, here’s the inimitable Tony Bennett – who began his career as a singing waiter in New York, for $15 a week – singing I Left My Heart In San Francisco.
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Very little is known about the life of Reverend Sister Mary M. Nelson, other than that she “seems” to have been born in the late 19th century, and was “probably” a Pentecostal storefront preacher in Memphis, Tennessee. She did leave behind four recordings, one of which is tonight’s musical selection: From a 1927 vocals-only performance released on the Vocalion record label, and later reissued on Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music, here’s Reverend Sister Mary M. Nelson giving due warning to liars, drunkards, hypocrites, and various and sundry that they’d better get ready for Judgement.
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Tainted Love was a worldwide smash for English synthpop group Soft Cell. For a lot of people the song evokes mewling hairdressers in distress, or something (it’s not exactly The Ballad Of Ira Hayes, if you catch my drift) but it was actually a cover version of an older recording that had a bit of, erm, forearm to it. From 1965, here’s northern soul performer Gloria Jones singing the original – and waaay better – version of Tainted Love. Yes, yes, it all makes sense now.
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In 1934 American songwriter Cole Porter’s stage musical Anything Goes made it’s official debut in New York City. The production had a long and successful run, and several of the songs, including I Get A Kick Out Of You, remain well-known standards to this day. Tonight’s amusement en route to the Tips is a recording of Cole Porter himself singing the title song, Anything Goes. (Lyrics here.)
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Tonight’s amusement en route to the Tips is a short educational film about woodpeckers. Did you know that when a woodpecker is foraging for bugs it pecks just once or twice, but when it hammers loudly in rhythmic bursts, it’s not looking for food?

“By far the most often-heard drumming and pecking by woodpeckers has to do with communication, not feeding. Each species has a distinctive rhythmic pattern that it hammers out, often choosing hollow spaces that act as amplification chambers, broadcasting territorial claims far and wide. If a woodpecker drums repeatedly on your house, it’s likely using your dwelling as an amplifier, not as a grocery store.”

That explains a lot. Incidentally, anyone who has ever been awoken early in the morning by what sounds like either a brass door-knocker or an old-fashioned typewriter might be interested to hear the territory-claiming sound made by the yellow-bellied Sapsucker at 3:07.
From the people behind Peterson Field Guides, here’s a brief introduction to our feathered friends, the Woodpeckers.
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