Bebe Neuwirth Songs

February 18, 2006 3:32 PM

Bebe Neuwirth, Jack Everly & the SuperPops program. Can someone identify one of the songs?

I was given tickets to this concert last night and it was wonderful but, at times, it was very hard to understand the lyrics Ms Neuwirth was singing (mostly Kantor & Ebb along with Kurt Weil). It was especially difficult for my mother, who has hearing aids and complained that the symphony played over Ms Neuwirth's voice.
There was no program but I've found most of the songs (Here Lies Jenny etc) except for one.
The refrain sounded like 'Bill's Bar in Bilboa'. There was 'grass growing on the dance floor' 'it was fantastic'. (can you tell even I couldn't make it out?). Can anyone identify this song?
Bonus: is there list available online of the songs she is performing for this program?

posted by jaimystery to Society & Culture (3 answers total)

Best answer: The end of this Playbill review lists all the songs Neuwirth sang in an earlier Weill/Brecht revue (Here Lies Jenny), including "The Bilbao Song," from Happy End, 1929. And here's a set of lyrics, but the original song was written in German, so these may not be the ones you heard.*
*P.S. You did well to figure out the lyrics. According to amIright.com, "That old Bilbao moon" has been misheard as "that old big ballroom."
posted by rob511 at 4:49 PM on February 18, 2006

Best answer: Is it, by chance, "Bilbao Song" (words and music by Weill and Brecht) from the 1929 German musical Happy End? Neuwirth did that in Here Lies Jenny last year.

The lyrics include: "No paint was on the door / The grass grew through the floor / Of Tony's Two By Four / On the Bilbao shore..."
posted by bradlands at 5:00 PM on February 18, 2006

Response by poster: Thanks to both of you! That's it.
posted by jaimystery at 6:02 PM on February 18, 2006