Quick Note: It’s been a while! Since I’ve posted last, I’ve had kids finish school, start summer activities, a kitchen remodeled, and a vacation! We barreled through Washington and Oregon, visiting cousins and old friends and seeing brand new-to-us terrain. I’ve held on to this post for awhile, not sure if it fit. But I’m posting in the spirit of reunions and Pride month. After all, summer’s just “another season, another reason… for makin’ whoopee.”
The Pianolist: an introduction
I think we grew up in a sort of Lawrence Welk show. The adults around us were always putting on a show, always singing the latest Broadway hit, always dancing or playing an instrument. All in a very middle-class, sheltered but curious, moderately talented, modestly aware, too-humble, sort of self-conscious, peacefully complicated existence that I think might be relatable to other midwesterners, maybe even a few Canadians.
My mom was the music teacher and played the piano for every drama club, high school and grade school show.
Not to mention church choirs and liturgical plays.
And backyard singalongs.
In the midst of all this, there were parties and my grandma threw some of the best of them. It’s there where I learned to pump the pianola.
I’ve never mastered an instrument it is fair to say. Get to know me, and know thyself a dabbler extraordinaire. But after 30 years of being allowed to pump the pedals of the pianola, I think it’s time, nay past time, to call myself a pianolist.
The player piano that long since resided in my grandma’s storied basement has since moved to the basement of my parents’ home. She still works but requires a bit of finesse to operate. You have to pedal precisely to get the air to pump enough to do its pneumatic magic. I think that’s as technical as I’ll get about how the pianola works. I like to think of it as magic, like the internet, where you can google “how a player piano works” and immediately find out. I did google it. And it is pneumatic, I was right about that thank goodness.
Grandma’s piano has unique requirements, like an old car you know well. You have to pedal, as I said, at the right speed and with the right amount of force. You have to manage the tempo even though the tempo gauge no longer works. You have to be careful with the older paper and tighten it just so before putting it in one side at a time like a battery. And you have to have the endurance, like an overweight but super optimistic Peloton trainer, to pump and sing, building endurance for a full-show medley. Leave room in the lungs for Old Man River! You’re an enter-trainer now - the life of the party, while on a treadmill. A Master Pianolist (MP) has to keep the party’s spirits up and keep people coming back for more. And unlike a Peloton trainer, you must keep the sweating to a minimum. Pedal, sing, and “Smile!” (pronounced “SMOW”, rhymes with cow) as one legendary party attendee used to tell everyone. This is a party after all.
Above the piano is a collection of rolls ranging from antiques from the 20s to Disney collections of the 90s. Each roll played an important part in our lives somehow. When I say our or we, I am including my brother and sister and the cousins or the aunts and uncles who listened to or humored us. Somehow we could always play “Makin’ Whoopee” from the 1930s and no matter what was on the pop chart at the time, our whole family would just laugh and listen and never ask for us to switch the radio back on.
The songs were pretty varied though, as I said, you’ll hear them all on the Lawrence Welk show. Many of them are what today’s parlance would describe as “problematic” (See A-hab the A-rab) while others were attempting to be risqué only to be laughed at decades later by some ironic 80s/90s teenagers who used the word “duh” far too much for their mother’s liking.
Generational caveat: we were pupils of Peewee Herman, Saturday Night Live, and the original MTV. We gravitated to the goofy, the nostalgic, and to anything calling itself a musical. So there was a joy in pulling down selections from Sweet Charity or belting “What I did for Love” from A Chorus Line or laughing at titles like “If I Said You Had a Beautiful Body, Would you Hold it Against Me”. We dissected these rolls over and over and again through the years, the world growing and shrinking in various ways as we aged.
There are 70 years of music choices above the pianola that each point to a specific point in time both in the life of the roll itself and in my story. You can relate to the nostalgia if you have a carefully curated record collection, or if you see your biography in your old tape or cd collection. This one offers an early look at what we are now used to - the ever-evolving technology to make music ever more accessible.
Did you hear that the last iPods have rolled out of the factory and are now obsolete - wasn’t that a fast and simpler time? The pianolo, the original iPod that did not fit in your pocket, is a scroll with air holes in it capable of spitting out an arrangement, played and amplified by a live, acoustic instrument - piano strings and hammers - Irving Berlin songs played by Irving Berlin. His ghost in your basement. It’s witchcraft. And it’s meant to be a social experience, this piano. It’s meant to be physically, manually, pedaled out for your pleasure and for the joy of the room. That room should ideally be filled with fun people.
In this case, that will be you. Maybe periodically I can share with you a piano roll. We’ll learn a little about the song and if it evokes a memory or two, I’ll share it. I hope you’ll comment on any memories you have of the song or lyric too. Would it be fun if I filmed some lovely special guests singing the songs at full belt? Anyway, maybe we’ll make something of this. Let’s start with everyone’s favorite: the aforementioned, “Makin’ Whoopee.”
Join me, won’t you? As Lawrence Welk himself would say, “Wunnerful, wunnerful!” Let’s begin shall we? “Ah one, and ah two, and ah…”
Makin’ Whoopee! QRS Piano Roll #118
Music by Walter Donaldson
Lyrics by Gus Kahn
Sung by Eddie Cantor in film Whoopee! In 1928
Here’s the piano roll, lyrics below :
Every time I hear that dear old wedding march I feel rather glad I have a broken arch. I have heard a lot of people talk And I know that marriage is a long long walk. To most people weddings mean romance But I prefer a picnic or a dance. Another bride, Another groom, Another sunny honeymoon, Another season, Another reason For making whoopee. The chorus sings, "Here comes the bride." Another victim is by her side. He's lost his reason cause it's the season For making whoopee. Down through the countless ages You'll find it everywhere. Somebody makes good wages. Somebody wants her share. She calls him 'Toodles' and rolls her eyes. She makes him strudles and bakes him pies. What is it all for? It's so he'll fall for making whoopee. Another year or maybe less What's this I hear? Well, can't you guess? She feels neglected so he's suspected Of making whoopee. She sits alone most every night. He doesn't phone or even write. He says he's busy. But she says, "Is he?" He's making whoopee. He doesn't make much money: Five thousand dollars per. Some judge who thinks he's funny Says, "You'll pay six to her." He says, "Now judge, suppose I fail?" The judge says, "Budge right into jail." You better keep her. You'll find it's cheaper Than making whoopee.
Makin Whoopee
This song quickly became a staple at the Christmas party, and well, every party. It’s not the shortest song to pump, so you want a seasoned veteran to start the party. The fun comes from the easily discerned euphemism of "Makin’ Whoopee" which makes both adults and kids think they’re putting something over on the other. We liked the outdated idea, too, that marriage is just a big trap for the man. History is hilarious. Any song who so overtly sides with an anti-feminist idea like “every female is conspiring to get your alimony” is pretty funny.
The song starts with, I think, a very Christmasy/New Year’s theme of “another season, another reason” (for Makin’ Whoopee). Isn’t time just cyclical like that? Spring time is obvious but Christmas too - another cousin is engaged or has brought a boyfriend and where are you? And when you’re young and single, are you not just using every season to get something exciting out of it? And aren’t we all doomed? Like this fella here in the song who soon finds he’s trapped and a judge tells him it’s cheaper to just keep his ol’ ball and chain than to go out and have fun makin’ whoopee with another. Good Stuff. It’s an unromantic view of love that is good for a person to hear who is sick with wondering when in the hell love is going to happen to her.
For a teenager in the pre-youtube 90s,this song also took me into a fairly deep dive into the canon of Eddie Cantor. I bought one or two best-of cds from the Best Buy where we used to buy cds and go to Steak-n-Shake, and enjoyed some other hilarious tunes like “How You Gonna Keep ‘em Down on the Farm (After they’ve seen Par-ee)?” That’s World War I history for you right there! I had never thought about soldiers coming back from an exciting war and not wanting to settle down! And “Josephina Please No Leana on the Bell - when you smoocha, please no pusha da bell” was just a delightful prancing idea of an old Italian woman yelling out a city window. Positively exotic. And I only recently discovered “The Older They Get, The Younger They Want ‘em” and “My Wife is on a Diet” which are basically just vaudeville jokes put to a melody.
Cantor was a goofy guy in a suit who could captivate an audience with his posture and his googly rolling eyes. He could ball change on just the right beat to keep ‘em hooked- and without a hint of a belt or a scoop, he could just sing a joke and make it land. Not only that but he was talented (and lucky) enough to make a unicorn career that went from Vaudeville to Radio to Film.
Ah, the 20s. Whenever I think that "kids these days" are singing silly lyrics or that songs don’t have enough meaning, or any meaning, I think of all the ridiculous (genius, but ridiculous) songs that Eddie Cantor was singing or that Cole Porter wrote. S’wonderful is a silly word. It just is. The double entendre of “Let’s do it” is even more blissfully innocent and lustful as a group of young teenagers singing Makin' Whoopee.
I don’t know. I think it’s a kind of lovely way to grow up thinking about it all. Love is fun and it’s a disaster - these are important things to know.
That’s all for now. Look for other installments of The Pianolist when I can get a minute to roll out some tunes. If you have any requests, go on and make them then. And if you want to come over and sing with me, you can say that too.
“It’s not the shortest song to pump” just about sums it up