I just read Peter Ackroyd’s excellent, purposefully pithy biography Charlie Chaplin: A Brief Life. I’ve read most of the major Chaplin bios, and Ackroyd gives you as full picture of Chaplin’s long career without getting too bogged down in any one area for very long.
Here’s a mixtape to read Charlie Chaplin to.
“At the Moving Picture Ball” by Joseph Santley and Howard Johnson. “Charlie Chaplin, with his feet/ Stepped all over poor Blanche Sweet/ Dancing at that moving picture ball.”
Katie Herzig, “Charlie Chaplin.” “Each of us has got a little Charlie Chaplin inside us sayin’ “Hey fellas why don’t we go where movies are silent and life is as big as the stage?”
Traditional skipping rhyme:
Charlie Chaplin went to France
To teach the ladies the hula dance
First on the heels, then on the toes,
Around and around and around you go,
Salute the captain and bow to the queen
Touch the bottom of a submarine.
Oldham Tinkers, “Charlie Chaplin.” A multi-verse extension of the jumping rhyme above.
“Charlie Chaplin,” World War I army marching song, sung to the tune of “Little Redwing.”
The moon shines down
On Charlie Chaplin
He’s going balmy
To join the army
But his little baggy trousers
They need a-mending
Before they send him
To the Dardanelles
The moon shines bright
On Charlie Chaplin
But his shoes are cracking
For want of blacking
And his baggy khaki trousers
Still need mending
Before they send him
To the Dardanelles.
Asher Roth, “Charlie Chaplin.” Happy little feet. I don’t want to try to drown whatever’s happening to me. I walk with out a sound, Charlie Chaplin on the beat.” This is actually a reference to Charlie Chaplin the much-sampled reggae star, not Charlie Chaplin the movie star, but the lyric could apply to either.
A video cover of Charlie’s gibberish song from Modern Times.
The Clown Archives: Charlie Chaplin Cover, The Nonsense Song from tim trick on Vimeo.
The lyrics to that Modern Times song, courtesy of http://www.rioleo.org/chaplin-modern-times-waiter.php, which also shows the lyrics of the original French song it’s aping, plus a translation of that French version.
Se bella giu satore
Je notre so cafore
Je notre si cavore
Je la tu la ti la twah
La spinash o la bouchon
Cigaretto Portabello
Si rakish spaghaletto
Ti la tu la ti la twah
Senora pilasina
Voulez-vous le taximeter?
Le zionta su la seata
Tu la tu la tu la wa
Sa montia si n’amora
La sontia so gravora
La zontcha con sora
Je la possa ti la twah
Je notre so lamina
Je notre so cosina
Je le se tro savita
Je la tossa vi la twah
Se motra so la sonta
Chi vossa l’otra volta
Li zoscha si catonta
Tra la la la la la la
“Modern Times,” J-Five. That Modern Times song is sampled extensively in this single, a big hit in France in 2004.
Chaplin’s been the subject of several musicals. The most recent Broadway one was Chaplin: The Musical by Christopher Curtis and Thomas Meehan, which had its New York debut in 2012 but regional productions dating back to 2006, when the show’s title was Limelight. There was a 1993 musical also called Chaplin that nearly made it to Broadway, starring John Rubinstein, but was mothballed and didn’t get a full professional production until 2012 in London. There was also a 1983 musical called Chaplin, starring Anthony Newley, that closed on its pre-Broadway tour and never made it to New York.
Chaplin’s greatest hit as a composer, “Smile,” has been covered by everyone from Nat King Cole to the cast of Glee to R&B/hip-hop diva Janelle Monae.