Puttin’ On The Ritz
Irving Berlin
Berlin wrote these ingeniously syncopated lyrics as a stand-alone song in 1927 (published 1929). It was recorded, most famously, by Fred Astaire (see the parody, below, in which he is mentioned) in 1930. When the song was used in the 1946 film ‘Blue Skies’, Berlin rewrote the lyrics changing the location from Lennox Avenue, where flashily-dressed but poor Harlem inhabitants lived, to the white middle class Park Avenue. Black or white, the song is about those folks who like to dress up and strut their stuff for effect, inspired by the opulent Ritz Hotel founded by the Swiss hotelier Cesar Ritz.
Irving Berlin
[Original 1928 lyrics]:
Have you seen the well-to-do up on Lenox Avenue
On that famous thoroughfare with their noses in the air
High hats and colored collars, white spats and fifteen dollars
Spending every dime for a wonderful time
If you’re blue and you don’t know where to go to
Why don’t you go where Harlem sits
Puttin’ on the ritz
Spangled gowns upon a bevy of high browns
From down the levee, all misfits
Puttin’ on the ritz
That’s where each and every lulubelle goes
Ev’ry Thursday evening with her swell beaus
Rubbing elbows
Come with me and we’ll attend their jubilee
And see them spend their last two bits
Puttin’ on the ritz
[Berlin’s revised 1946 version]:
Have you seen the well-to-do up and down Park Avenue
On that famous thoroughfare with their noses in the air
High hats and Arrow collars, white spats and lots of dollars
Spending every dime for a wonderful time
If you’re blue and you don’t know where to go to
Why don’t you go where fashion sits
Puttin’ on the ritz
Diff’rent types who wear a day coat, pants with stripes
And cutaway coat, perfect fits
Puttin’ on the ritz
Dressed up like a million dollar trouper
Trying hard to look like Gary Cooper
Super duper
Come let’s mix where Rockefellers walk with sticks
Or “um-ber-ellas” in their mitts
Puttin’ on the ritz
PARODY BY ANON.
Have you seen the well-to-do having sex like me and you?
They’re afraid of STDs and unwanted pregnancies
The AIDS scare’s reached it’s apex
But who cares? I want my safe sex
You feel that way too? Then the Ritz is the rubber for you.
If you screw and you don’t know who you do screw
Why don’t you use the brand that fits
Puttin’ on the Ritz.
Girls, you’ll see, will be receptive
They don’t want the contraceptive pills and kits
If you’re puttin’ on the Ritz.
Other brands? Well, friends, you can’t compare theirs
When you can wear the brand that Fred Astaire wears
And the Care Bears.
It’s a glitzy, ritzy condom
Worn by even Stephen Sondh’m who admits
To puttin’ on the Ritz.
You won’t need no diaphragm to trap her
Just slap your Mister Happy in that wrapper
And you’ll look dapper
With your playmate you will get much more play
She’ll help to put it on you during foreplay
At work or play.
Keep a few right in your wallet
If you do then I can call it quits,
Puttin’ on the Ritz.
