When I was calling the Goodspeed Opera House the other day, I got put on hold for a minute and heard a chorus of the Gershwin song “Blah Blah Blah”—which, if you think about it, is the perfect thing to hear over the telephone. The song appears in the first show of the Goodspeed season, My One and Only, got completely stuck in my head, and I realized it wasn’t on any of the dozen Gershwin CDs I own, not to mention any of the Michael Feinstein albums or Broadway compilations in my collection.
So I headed to iTunes, where I was confronted with overflowing cases of the Blahs:
The Ke$ha hit. The 1986 Iggy Pop album.
The Lenny Bruce routine where “blahblahblah” becomes a courtroom euphemism for “cocksucker.”
A song by The Cardigans which graced the first season soundtrack of TV’s Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
A couple of different country and western songs.
All named Blah Blah Blah.
Then there’s the band Blah Blah Blah, not to mention the Asian pop act Calories Blah Blah, the Atom & His Package album Attention! Blah Blah Blah and the very Gershwin-sounding metal album title Blah… Blah… Blah… Love Songs… by Scum of the Earth (featuring Riggs from Rob Zombie’s band).
Though neither the 1983 My One and Only soundtrack or any early recording of the song (written for, but not used, in the 1931 movie Delicious) appears to be available, there are cabaret or concert renditions by everyone from Sarah Vaughan to Marni Nixon to blues guitarist John Miller and classical pianist Nicolas Hodges.
I ultimately opted for sheet music, and worked out the song on the ukulele. Blah, blah, blah, I know. But it’ll be cool to be walking INTO a theater humming one of the tunes.