Song of the Day 6/16: Harry Richman, “I Love a Parade”

You know who doesn’t love a parade? Donald Trump. After going to all the trouble and expense of making it the centerpiece of a big, beautiful birthday celebration, he sulked through the whole thing. You can hardly blame him – it was a dull, low-energy affair that looked like it bored even the participants. For me, his joyless reaction underscored how MAGAts are angry even when they get what they want.

They didn’t play this song during the parade (though whoever programmed the music slyly inserted an instrumental version of “Fortunate Son”). It was written for a 1931 musical comedy, “Manhattan Parade,” but it never made it into the film. In the U.S., a saturated market had made musicals temporarily unpopular, so the studio cut all the musical numbers for the domestic market, though the full production was released overseas.

Harry Richman was a vaudevillian who had a hit record in 1930 with Irving Berlin’s “Puttin’ On the Ritz,” which led to his role in a movie version (and a legendary crack from Leonard Maltin about his lack of acting ability.*) He provided this song for “Manhattan Parade,” and released it as a single in 1932 despite its exclusion from the film.

The tune probably got its broadest exposure in this classic Looney Tunes short from 1932.

* “Famed nightclub entertainer Richman made his film debut in this primitive early talkie about vaudevillian who can’t handle success and turns to drink. You may do the same after watching Richman’s performance…”