1. The Wizard of Oz Soundtrack – Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Everyone’s heard this song a thousand times, but I don’t think I’d ever actually listened to it before. I’m really impressed by its rhythmic subtlety: Judy Garland is so far behind the beat that it almost sounds polyrhythmic at times. More and more I find that well-done pop music has much more going on in it than most people ever hear, simply because it’s not something we think to look for. This is a simple, kind of sentimental tune, but it’s got the same fluidity that I was [recently] praising as radical in Joanna Newsom‘ Ys. There’s also a short break for what I could swear was a theremin or an Ondes Martenot. That doesn’t seem very likely, does it? I don’t know what else it could be, though.

2. Kate Smith – God Bless America. Somehow I’ve never listened to the lyrics of “God Bless America” before, which means that I JUST GOT the Firesign Theatre song that goes “from the postman, to the mailman, to the milkman white with foam.” I’ve only been listening to that album for, oh, eight years. I don’t care about the song otherwise. I’m not particularly moved by expressions of religious patriotism (nothing against it, as long as it’s not jingoistic, but my brain just doesn’t seem to work that way), and in this case the arrangement is also bombastic.

3. Kay Kyser – Three Little Fishies. Oh holy christ this is intolerable. I don’t know which is worse: the “cute” little kid who can’t pronounce the word “fishie” or the grown man saying lines like “Sully, Ginny, Ishkabibble and Boopy-doopy-doo.” Actually, the former sounds like it might be an adult’s voice digitally altered to sound like a child’s — did that technology even exist in 1939? — but either way this song makes “On the Good Ship Lollipop” sound hip and edgy. At least the adult female singer has a nice voice.

4. Louis Armstrong – When the Saints Go Marching In. You know, I don’t even like this song, but Armstrong’s rendition of it just rules. I love his voice, I love his trumpet playing (which after this jazz class I can now recognize instantly), and I love the solo from whoever the clarinetist in his band is. There’s also some great improvised call-and-response between Armstrong and his trombonist at the end, and the drummer’s really got punch to his sound, which is nice after so many songs on the sweet and sentimental end. The whole thing is just a lot more loose and informal and gutsy than most of the other things I’ve listened to for this project so far. Also worth noting: this is only the second song by a black artist on this list, the first being Basie’s “One O’Clock Jump” (1937 #1). That will change in the early 40s, when all of a sudden Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Coleman Hawkins and The Ink Spots break into the top five charts, some of them repeatedly.
[Edit 12/28/06: It looks like I accidentally downloaded Armstrong's 1956 live recording of this song rather than his 1939 studio one. I guess that explains the looseness and informality, but it's kind of disappointing.]

5. Glenn Miller Orchestra – Moonlight Serenade. Gutsy it certainly isn’t, but I like it anyway. At first this sounded like it was going to be just a simple, fully arranged, instrumental big-band version of a sentimental pop tune. But soon little improvised piano runs started peering in through the cracks, and by about two thirds of the way in, there was actually a substantial amount of soloing from both piano and clarinet. The clarinet playing is especially haunting: it sounds like it’s got a shit-ton* of reverb on it, and the result is that it sounds a little alien and makes me think of creepily nostalgic scenes in David Lynch movies. That, and I actually really like the harmonic language of these sappy tunes from the 1930s — all major sixth and major seventh chords. Yum.

* I think this is the first time in my life that I’ve used the word “shit-ton.” No other word would do!