"Lonely Town" is a song from the 1944 musical On the Town . It was composed by Leonard Bernstein with lyrics by Adolph Green and Betty Comden.
It is performed in Scene 7 of Act 1 of the musical by the character Gabey, a sailor on shore leave, in the musical as he laments his loneliness despite being in the crowds of New York City. It is the first solo number performed by one of the principal characters in the musical. The song is formed of an AABAB structure. The song segues into the "Lonely Town Pas de Deux" ballet in the musical in which Gabey watches other sailors dance with girls while he is alone. [1] A new verse was created when it was released as sheet music as the original verse contained too many references to the specific plot of the musical. The song includes fragments of the song "New York, New York" from the musical. [1] "Lonely Town" is one of the three principal ballads of the show alongside "Lucky to Be Me" and "Some Other Time". [2] The song had developed from "Lonely Me", of which the lyrics only exist. [2]
The Boston Herald critic Elinor Hughes felt that "Lonely Town" was one of the few songs from the musical that would be "most likely to be remembered". [2]
Frank Sinatra starred in the 1947 film version of the musical with Gene Kelly, and believed that he was going to perform the song in the film though in the musical it had been written for Kelly's character. Comden recalled that Sinatra was "very, very angry" upon being told that on the last day of shooting that the song was not to be included. [3] [4]
In his biography of Sinatra, Sinatra! The Song Is You: A Singer's Art, Will Friedwald wrote that Sinatra and Gordon Jenkins considered the song the "high point" of Sinatra's 1957 album arranged by Jenkins, Where Are You? , and describes the song as a "heavy, moving ballad". [3]
"Lonely Town" was performed by Shirley Horn on Charlie Haden's 1999 album The Art of the Song , in an arrangement by Alan Broadbent. Broadbent won the Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s) at the 42nd Annual Grammy Awards in 2000. [5]
"Stardust" is a popular song composed in 1927 by Hoagy Carmichael with lyrics added by Mitchell Parish in 1929. Carmichael recorded the song, originally titled "Star Dust", at the Gennett studio in Richmond, Indiana. The "song about a song about love", played in an idiosyncratic melody in medium tempo, became an American standard and is one of the most recorded songs of the 20th century with over 1,500 recordings. In 2004, Carmichael's 1927 recording of the song was one of 50 recordings chosen by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry. The song was featured in the film "My Home In Umbria" (2003).
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On the Town is a musical with music by Leonard Bernstein and book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, based on Jerome Robbins' idea for his 1944 ballet Fancy Free, which he had set to Bernstein's music. The musical introduced several popular and classic songs, among them "New York, New York", "Lonely Town", "I Can Cook, Too", and "Some Other Time". The story concerns three American sailors on a 24-hour shore leave in New York City during wartime 1944. Each of the three sailors meets and quickly connects with a woman.
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