1. Shirley Temple – On the Good Ship Lollypop. I’ve heard good child singers: when I was in fourth grade, a girl in my class was in a professional production of Annie, and her voice was powerful, tuneful and accurate. As far as I can tell, though, Shirley Temple was not a good child singer — she was a novelty act. And so you get a seven-year-old who sounds exactly like any other seven-year-old, singing inane lyrics about fantasy worlds made of candy, to the accompaniment of something halfway between a jazz big band and an old Disney movie score, plus a barbershop quartet in the second half of the song. How adults could spend so much time listening to this in an era when they could have been listening to Duke Ellington — and before “old Disney movie score” existed as a nostalgia-category — is beyond me. Though it does end with a loud bang and a bunch of creepy laughter, which is kind of cool.

2. Fred Astaire – Cheek to Cheek. Now that’s what I’m talking about! Astaire has the kind of falsetto-y voice that’s probably my favorite thing about traditional vocal pop from the 20s and 30s century, before people like Sinatra had to go and make the genre all “manly” again. Plus there’s a violin that sounds like a theremin, which I find kind of funny because when [violinist] Clare [Twohy] and I were rehearsing my piece San Narciso in August, we went and listened to a bunch of theremin music so that she could try to play like one. Little did we know we could just be in the 1930s and it would all be fine! As for the song itself, it’s nice, especially the bridge (chromatic harmony!), but what I’m really listening to is Astaire’s voice. His diction sounds REMARKABLY like Tom Lehrer’s at times, too.

3. Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra – Blue Moon. Definitely a less interesting tune than “Cheek to Cheek” — actually, it’s kind of clunky. It’s weird: I can actually picture this as a doo-wop song without much trouble. I don’t really have much else to say about it, other than that it vaguely makes me think of my grandmother. I wonder if she knows it.

4. Cole Porter – You’re the Top. OK, this rules. The whole song is Porter telling his addressee how great she is in terms of outrageous metaphors: “You’re the purple light of a summer night in Spain / You’re the National Gallery, you’re Garbo’s salary, you’re cellophane.” (I guess cellophane still seemed like a brilliant new invention in 1935.) Also: “You’re a rose, you’re Inferno’s Dante / You’re the nose on the great Durante.” (Of course, “Dante” is pronounced “Dantee.”) I like the way he sings it, too, because it’s so different from modern musical theater performance practice — not only is it not over-the-top, it’s kind of under-the-bottom. Plus he’s got that kind of pseudo-British accent that rich Americans did through at least the 40s (see also: Katharine Hepburn), and you can practically hear the dandyish twinkle in his eye. My only complaint is that he doesn’t do all the choruses in this recording, which means that his list of insults towards himself (all of which rhyme with “But if, baby, I’m the bottom, you’re the top”) doesn’t include “I’m a nominee of the G.O.P., or ‘gop’!”

5. Leo Reisman Orchestra – It Ain’t Necessarily So. This is one of the two songs I couldn’t find. I even know what CD it’s on, but that doesn’t really do me much good unless I want to buy it just for this project, which I don’t. Oh well. On to 1936! But first, on to bed.