Calendrical intro. 3 … 4 … 5 … 📐 — once in every century the days are perfectly aligned, in the pattern of a 3-4-5 Pythagorean triangle:
9/16/25: 9 + 16 = 25, that is, 3^2 + 4^2 = 5^2
Today is Pythagoras Day for the 21st century; if you miss this bus, it will be a long wait till the next one.
But while you’re waiting, you can practice the song for the day,”Pythagorean Theorem”; from my 6/18/25 posting “The Pythagorean Impromptu”, about
a dream in which Danny Kaye sang the Pythagorean Theorem, in the form
The square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the two adjacent sides
(which is the version the actual Danny Kaye sang in the 1958 movie Merry Andrew, and, yes, I do remember this from 1958)
… You can listen to Danny Kaye perform “Pythagorean Theorem” on YouTube here
The main event. A follow-up to yesterday’s brief posting “A dog and his boy”, a poignantly affectionate recollection of my man Jacques, in which a bit of the Gershwin song “The Man I Love” flashed by. The first line — Someday he’ll come along — would have been enough to establish the song as a love fantasy, about the man who might come along, the dream partner for a life together. But this posting is all about the song as a whole, a Gershwin-Gershwin delight, with four very different performances, all of them wonderful. But first, the background and the words.
Background. Bare bones from Wikipedia:
“The Man I Love” is a popular standard with music by George Gershwin and lyrics by his brother Ira Gershwin. Part of the 1924 score for the Gershwin musical comedy Lady, Be Good, the song was deleted from that show and put into the Gershwins’ 1927 government satire Strike Up the Band (where it appears as “The Man I Love” and “The Girl I Love”), which closed out-of-town.
… The song was used as the title of, and was prominently featured in, the 1947 film noir melodrama The Man I Love, starring Ida Lupino and Bruce Bennett.
… Like many songs from George and Ira Gershwin, “The Man I Love” is considered part of the Great American Songbook. … it was covered on stage and on record by many artists. An early notable performance was by the Benny Goodman Quartet at the Goodman band’s 1938 Carnegie Hall Concert (with Benny Goodman on clarinet; Gene Krupa on drums, Teddy Wilson on piano, and Lionel Hampton on vibraphone) – famed not only as part of that historic jazz concert but for being done by one of the first integrated groups of black and white musicians to perform in concert in the United States.
In 1994 the song was recorded by Kate Bush for Larry Adler’s The Glory of Gershwin tribute album; released as a single on 18 July 1994
The overall structure of the song has two verses, a playful and free-form bridge (an excursion from the deep sentimentality of the verses), and then a final verse. The verses have six lines, with the rhyme pattern ABABCC.
The lyrics. In full:
[Verse 1]
Someday he’ll come along
The man I love
And he’ll be big and strong
The man I love
And when he comes my way
I’ll do my best to make him stay[Verse 2]
He’ll look at me and smile
I’ll understand
And in a little while
He’ll take my hand
And though it seems absurd
I know we both won’t say a word[Bridge]
Maybe I shall meet him Sunday
Maybe Monday, maybe not
Still I’m sure to meet him one day
Maybe Tuesday will be my good news day[Verse 3]
He’ll build a little home
Just meant for two
From which I’ll never roam
Who would? Would you?
And so all else above
I’m waiting for the man I love
The elegantly simple melody of the verses drifts down to a resting point, of comfortable pleasure in the strong arms of the man the singer loves.
Four recorded performances. With four different emotional tonalities. Listed here in chronological order.
Billie Holliday. A single by Billie Holiday and her orchestra (released February 1940), on YouTube here. Billie Holiday would make reciting an ingredients list sound lascivious, and this is about loving a man, so it’s delicious.
Ella Fitzgerald. From Ella Fitzgerald Sings The George And Ira Gershwin Sing Book, arranged by Nelson Riddle (a box set released December 1959), on YouTube here. Warm and subtle, wonderful Ella.
Kate Bush. From 1994, described above, on YouTube here. I don’t think there’s a performance that’s more delicate and nuanced than this one.
And now for something completely different: gay male versions, in particular this solid, direct man-on-man love song:
Zebedy Colt. From the original soundtrack for the HBO tv series Looking (2014-15), on YouTube here. Warm and passionate.
From Wikipedia:
Looking is an American comedy-drama television series that aired on HBO from January 19, 2014, to July 23, 2016. It was created by Michael Lannan, with Lannan, Andrew Haigh, David Marshall Grant, and Sarah Condon serving as executive producers. The show stars Jonathan Groff, Frankie J. Alvarez, Murray Bartlett, Lauren Weedman, Russell Tovey, and Raúl Castillo. It centers on the lives of Patrick, Agustín, and Dom — three gay men living and working in modern-day San Francisco. Looking marked HBO’s first television series focused primarily on the lives of gay men.
Beautifully done.
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