This being America,
the songwriting and publishing credits of this 1920's era Tin Pan
Alley tune are profoundly Jewish: Sherman and Lewis and Silver and
Shapiro and Bernstein and then some. This being America, at least one
of those songwriters fled the Cossack pogroms of Kiev as a young boy.
This being America, these men and their industry cranked out song
after song after song using the newly invented assembly line
method—this man responsible for the concept, another the melody, a
third for the rhyme—and the sheet music of those songs sold
millions of copies, and people bought the sheet music and business
was booming.
This being America,
it was a short 15 year leap from her her birth (to German and Irish
immigrants in the Bronx) onto the vaudeville stage (as a chorus girl
in a Marx Brothers act.) This being America, next was Broadway, where
she became an overnight sensation after ad-libbing the syllables
“boop-boop-a-doop” during one evening's performance. This being
America, these four syllables eventually led to a contract with
Paramount Films for a whopping $8,000 a week for the five foot tall,
squeaky-voiced “Boop-Boop-A-Doop Girl.” This being America,
anything was possible.
This being America,
she sued the makers of the cartoon character for “unfair
competition and wrongful appropriation.” This being America, the
defense claimed that “boop-boop-a-doop” had in fact been invented
by a black singer named Baby Esther who regularly performed at The
Cotton Club. This being America, there was never really any question
of compensating Baby Esther. This being America, nothing was proven,
and the case was dismissed. This being America, the Depression came
and people mostly forgot about Helen Kane. This being America, the
cartoon survived much longer.
This
being America, Kane's memory received a second act fifty years after
the fact. This being America, that second act took the shape of a
five foot three inch tall chanteuse of German and Italian descent
born in Queens. This being America, He's So Unusual
shared space on an album with other songs by writers from Atlanta,
Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, and Stockholm. This being America, this is
generally how the sausage is made. Or the hits. This being America,
everybody danced all over again, forgetting that they'd danced to
exactly the same tune half a century before. This being America, a
good song might come out of anywhere and anytime, business was still
booming, and anything was possible. A good song might come out of
anywhere and anytime and, this being America, everyone was prepared
to dance when it did.
