#71: Getting to Be a Habit With Me

Oh, I can't break away
I must have you everyday
As regularly as coffee or tea
You've got me in your clutches
And I can't break free
You're getting to be a habit with me

Fifty years before Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love" and a year before Cole Porter's "I Get A Kick Out of You," Harry Warren and Al Dubin captured the narcotic virtues of romance in this soft-shoe-like number from that classic show within a show, 42nd Street. I love those eighth-note triplets ("getting to be," "regularly") that give the song such daintiness. Performed twice in the movie, the second time features the female lead being charmed by one man, and then another, and then two more. What kind of habit is that?

While it never rose above No. 4 on the charts in 1933 (Warren and Dubin's "Shuffle Off to Buffalo" was more popular), this piece has since endured as a classic, performed by Frank Sinatra in the Fifties, Diana Krall in the Nineties and the jazz-bossa nova Brazilian group, Delicatessen, in 2006. I like listening to Ben Selvin's orchestra and "America's Sweetheart of Song," Ruth Etting, on the Victrola. You can learn more about Etting (pictured) and her tempestuous life by watching Doris Day's performance in the 1955 film, Love Me or Leave Me.

#72: I've Got a Gal in Kalamazoo

A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H
I got a gal in Kalamazoo,
Don't wanna boast,
But I know she's the toast
Of Kalamazoo-zoo-zoo-zoo.

Written in 1942 as the big production number for the film Orchestra Wives, this tune by New Yorkers Harry Warren and Mack Gordon (born Salvatore Antonio Guaragna and Morris Gittler, respectively) sings the praises of a Midwestern sweetheart, underscored by homesickness in the heart of wartime. It was perhaps the first time that many listeners ever heard of Kalamazoo, Michigan, but the four-syllable setting was distinctive enough to be memorable while folksy enough to capture the idea of an American Heartland hometown perfectly. Musically, the song just swings. Don't you love the use of the alphabet in the opening verse? It's like a wind-up to the rest of the line, which shoots up the major triad to the top of the octave.

Nominated for an Academy Award (they lost to "White Christmas," so they shouldn't feel too bad), the classic recording is The Glenn Miller Orchestra, featuring Tex Beneke and The Modernaires. The Big Band members really put on a show with their choreography of sorts; the female vocalist Marion Hutton is adorable; and you have to watch at 4:30 through the end when the Nicholas Brothers reprise the song and then do the most incredible splits in their subsequent dance. A real piperoo!