#47: The Man That Got Away

The night is bitter,
The stars have lost their glitter,
The winds grow colder,
And suddenly you're older
And all because of
The man that got away.

No more his eager call,
The writing's on the wall,
The dreams you dreamed have all
Gone astray.
The man that won you
Has run off and undone you.
That great beginning
Has seen its final inning,
Don't know what happened
It's all a crazy game.

Two great musicians who generally collaborated with others -- Harold Arlen and Ira Gershwin -- teamed up for this 1953 torchsong that Judy Garland wailed during the mid-decade movie, A Star Is Born. Arlen had written the music for Garland's hit movie, The Wizard of Oz, 15 years earlier, and was seen as the perfect steward for her comeback after years of substance abuse problems. Wizard lyricist Yip Harburg had been blacklisted for supposed Communist ties at this height of the McCarthy era and was therefore skipped over in favor of Gershwin, whose still-preserved hand-written notes reveal the extent to which he labored over the themes and rhymes of this bluesy ballad. The adjacent rhymes and the repeated melodic phrases create a churning sound and contribute a near-ominous tone to this lament.

"The Man That Got Away" was a critical number in the film; it's the moment that both leads Garland's character to get discovered as a rising star and foreshadows the alcohol-drenched downfall of her husband and mentor. Unsatisfied with the staging, lighting and costuming, director George Cukor had to scene reshot multiple times, to great expense, to perfect it.

While the movie did not do well, the song endured, and many have since recorded it, including Sinatra, who sang "The Gal That Got Away." Here's Garland in the film, and then a decade later on her television show. Audra Ann McDonald takes it on here in a quiet version.

#54-53: Get Happy / Happy Days Are Here Again

It was called "a meeting of god and titan exponentially more genuine and torch-passing than the Bill Clinton-J.F.K. photograph." While Barbra Streisand had reinvented the old FDR theme song, "Happy Days Are Here Again," as a slow vamp for a 1962 album, it was Judy Garland's idea to combine it with one of her own favorites, "Get Happy," for their duet on Garland's television show.

Written a year apart, "Happy Days" (1929) was both Milton Ager and Jack Yellen's most famous song, while "Get Happy" (1930) was Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler's first together. After the television performance of two legends -- one a 21-year-old just starting her career and the other a star for decades -- Judy reprised the song at the London Palladium with another powerhouse, her daughter, Liza. Want someone other than Judy? Shame on you. Okay, fine. Here's Broadway rockstars Patti LuPone and Audra McDonald giving the intertwining "Happy" tunes a whirl.

#65: A Sleepin' Bee

When a bee lies sleepin'
In the palm of your hand
You're bewitched and deep in love's
Long looked-after land
Where you'll see a sun-up sky
With the morning dew
And where the days go laughin' by
As love comes a-calling on you

Two bordellos competing for business in the West Indies is the setting for the 1954 musical, House of Flowers, a collaboration between Harold Arlen (after he wrote The Wizard of Oz) and Truman Capote (before he wrote Breakfast at Tiffany's). Based on Capote's novella of the same name, this was his only musical. An all-star cast, including Pearl Bailey, Juanita Hall, Ray Walston and Diahann Carroll, couldn't save this show from poor reviews and a relatively short run, but Carroll's song, "A Sleepin' Bee," took on a life of its own. Months after an 18-year-old Barbra Streisand learned it for an amateur contest at a Greenwich Village bar that she of course won, she radiantly sang it for her national television debut on the Jack Paar Show in 1961; the textures she brings in this performance are remarkable. And here she is 40 years later, with a lead-in verse that explains what it means to catch a sleepin' bee. This was a signature song for Diahann Carroll as well, and she reprised it in this performance at the 1985 Tony's; artists such as Audra Ann McDonald and seven-time Grammy winner Al "Moonlighting" Jarreau have also been attracted to the dreamlike musical intervals and long, poetic phrases of this bewitching song.

#66: Bill

And I can't explain
It's surely not his brain
That makes me thrill
I love him because he's wonderful
Because he's just my Bill.

While the opening to Gershwin's "I've Got a Crush on You" teases, "It's not that you're attractive, but -- oh -- my heart grew active," the song soon refers to its subject as "my big and brave and handsome Romeo." Not with Kern and P. G. Wodehouse's "Bill" from the epic 1927 musical Show Boat, where the torchsinger Julie goes to great lengths to detail why her boyfriend is unexceptional intellectually, physically, athletically, artistically, professionally and on. The best she can do is explain that she fits snugly in his lap. Oh, the improbable, unexplainable impulses of love! (And, yes, Oscar Hammerstein II was Kern's collaborator on Show Boat, but they pulled this tune out of Kern's trunk after it had proven too melancholy for a different show.)

Famous nightclub singer Helen Morgan played Julie in the Broadway and film versions of Show Boat and -- like her character -- struggled with alcohol. You can listen to Helen Morgan's performance in the 1936 movie, or enjoy this more recent interpretation from the always incredible Audra Ann McDonald. I happen to like this song best when it's more sultry and less operatic, but you can't argue with Audra.