Everything's Coming Up Roses

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For the Night Terrors of 1927 album, see Night Terrors of 1927.

"Everything's Coming Up Roses" is a song with music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, written initially for the 1959 Broadway musical Gypsy. Introduced in the show's inaugural production by Ethel Merman, "Everything's Coming Up Roses" became one of Merman's signature songs.

Overview[]

According to Sammy Cahn, the song had its genesis in the 1947 musical High Button Shoes, for which he was the lyricist. Cahn wrote lyrics for a song entitled Betwixt and Between to be sung by a female character who cannot decide between two men.

Jule Styne, who was that musical's composer, wrote music for it, but the director decided the song did not fit well into the show and removed it. When composing Gypsy, Styne decided to re-use the music for what became "Everything's Coming Up Roses", with new lyrics by Sondheim. It took Sondheim a week to come up with the title, the lyricist recalling: "The point was to [coin] a phrase that sounded as if it had been in the language for years but was in fact invented for the show." (The similar phrase, "come up smelling like a rose" has in fact been in general usage since the early 20th century.) The show's director Jerome Robbins's response to Sondheim's lyric was: "Everything's coming up Rose's what?" prompting Sondheim's assurance that "if anybody else has that confusion - anybody connected with the production, in the audience, any of your relatives - I will change the title."[1]

"Everything's Coming Up Roses" is performed at the end of the first act of Gypsy by stage mother Rose, who has just learned her daughter June has eloped and in effect left the vaudeville act Rose has devoted her life to without a star. Rose's response is to make her other daughter Louise the object of her dubious star-making abilities. The title "Everything's Coming Up Roses" is a pun: Besides "roses" representing happiness, the title is referencing the possessive "Rose's" as in Rose's way or "Rose" as in Rose becoming a star herself, through her daughter.[citation needed]

Ethel Merman biographer Brian Kellow notes that while objectively "Everything's Coming Up Roses" seems "a big, brassy paean to the power of positive thinking...done in the old, electric Merman style", within the context of the show "the song becomes a chilling illustration of blind ambition mixed with megalomania". Kellow quotes Stephen Sondheim to the effect that while Merman's comedic prowess was "nonpareil" as showcased in Gypsy's first act she lacked the dramatic precision to be fully effective as the play grew darker; thus, Sondheim says of "Everything's Coming Up Roses": "I wrote a song of the type that [Merman] had sung all her life, like [the Anything Goes number] 'Blow, Gabriel, Blow', which only requires a trumpet-voiced affirmation." However Sondheim adds that Merman performed the song with an "intensity [which] came as a surprise."[2]

The emergence of "Everything's Coming Up Roses" as a Broadway anthem was evidenced by the song's melody being used to open and close the 14th Tony Awards ceremony held April 24, 1960 (ironically Gypsy took none of its eight Tony nominations).[3]

In 1974, Ethel Merman appeared in a television advertisement singing new lyrics to the tune of "Everything's Coming Up Roses" to promote the Colgate-Palmolive dishwashing liquid Vel. That same year Merman recorded "Everything's Coming Up Roses" for her album Merman Sings Merman recorded with Stanley Black & the London Festival Orchestra. In 1979, Merman again recorded the song for her album Ethel Merman Disco Album. In her final film appearance, a cameo in the 1980 film Airplane! as shell-shocked soldier Lieutenant Hurwitz who believes he is Ethel Merman, Merman sings a few bars of "Everything's Coming Up Roses".

Other versions of "Everything's Coming Up Roses" include:

In popular culture[]

  • Jack Paar used an instrumental version of this song as a personal theme of his. It served as the theme to The Tonight Show during the time that he hosted that show, as well as for his eponymous weekly prime time series that followed his tenure on Tonight.
  • Merman sang an excerpt of the song in the 1980 film Airplane!. Merman portrayed Lt. Hurwitz, a soldier suffering from shell shock, believing he was Ethel Merman.
  • Rosemary Clooney had a 1977 album release titled Everything's Coming Up Rosie. (Clooney had recorded "Everything's Coming Up Roses" as "Everything's Coming Up Rosie" for her 1960 album Clap Hands! Here Comes Rosie! but her Everything's Coming Up Rosie album does not feature any version of "Everything's Coming Up Roses".)
  • The Pasadena City College Tournament of Roses Honor Band performs the song during the Rose Parade as their signature theme song.
  • The 1992 episode of Spitting Image immediately after the 1992 UK general election was ended by the puppet representing defeated outgoing British Labour party leader Neil Kinnock making an ironic performance of the song (Kinnock's party having replaced the Red flag with the rose as its symbol).

References[]

  1. ^ Citron, Stepen (2001). Sondheim and Lloyd-Webber: The New Musical. New York City: Oxford University Press. p. 92. ISBN 0-19-509601-0.
  2. ^ Brian Kellow. "Merman: A Life". Large print ed. Thorndike Press, Waterville ME (2008) ISBN 978-1-4104-0508-1 p.395-6
  3. ^ Caryl Flinn "Brass Diva: the life and legends of Ethel Merman" University of California Press Berkeley & LA CA (2007) ISBN 978-0-520-22942-6 p.309
  4. ^ Dick, Bernard F. (2006). Forever Mame: the life of Rosalind Russell. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi. p. 209. ISBN 1-57806-890-8.
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