MUSIC & RADIO

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This page reflects music that has referenced Vassar. See separate pages for novels/poems/plays and alternative media.

Music

Opera

• Black Water, by John Duffy and Joyce Carol Oates

Based on Oates’s novella about a Senator who is driving a young magazine writer to his hotel for sex but has an accident on the way, putting the car into a marsh. An analogue for the Ted Kennedy / Chappaquiddick incident, the scene here has a black friend of the girl berating the Senator for his liberal position on affirmative action.


• Shanewis, by Charles Wakefield Cadman and Nelle Richmond Eberhart

An early 20th-century American opera with Indian subject matter that was performed multiple times at the Met and elsewhere before falling into obscurity. The opera begins with a wealthy Southern California socialite, who has taken an interest in a young Indian singer, giving a musicale to honor both the singer and the socialite's own daughter, who has returned home after a trip abroad following her Vassar graduation. The daughter's fiance falls for the singer and thus we have an opera. There is no recording but the libretto text is available online. The argument (synopsis) included in the published libretto mentions the daughter's college, but there doesn't appear to be any reference to the college in the actual sung text.

• The Last Savage, by Gian Carlo Menotti (English translation by George Mead)

An undeserved flop, this hardly ever performed opera from the 1960s features Kitty, who is an ambitious young anthropologist on the hunt in India for the world’s “last savage.”  Her wealthy father, worrying that capitalism is doomed in a time of increasing taxes, growing union power, and a Democratic administration, is indulging her chase because wants to marry her off to the Crown Prince of the region, to be sure she can be set up for life. Kitty’s not interested in marriage until after her quest has been completed. The Prince, Kodanda, isn’t interested in American women, but is pressured by his father to marry her since the democratic reforms in India threaten to rob his family of their wealth. 

Here is a Spoleto production of the opera; I've included the entire scene, and the relevant parts of the libretto appear below.

Kodanda: All right, I’ll do it.
Kitty: All right, I’ll do it. 
Kodanda:…but only if Miss Kitty gives up all this talk of anthropology.
Kitty:…but only after I have completed my scientific mission.
Kodanda: Oh father, remember how shameful it would be if I, a noble prince, were to marry a girl who’s hunting for an apeman. 
Kitty: Oh father, dear father, are you expecting me to go back to Vassar without a single trophy?  

[snip] 

Kodanda: I know far too many women who have beauty, charm and knowledge.
Who would gladly show how madly they can love me
To be wasting my affection on a pale girl from Vassar College
Who believes herself above me.
If only I could be happy without a wealthy wife
To Sardula, my true love, I would dedicate my life. 

Classical (sort of)

• Peter Schickele, Classical Rap

Composer and classical-music parodist Peter Schickele put out this parody of a boastful rap song as performed by an Upper West Side yuppie, written in the style of the late eighteenth century.

You can listen to the whole piece here, and the section of the lyrics that mention Vassar appears below.

Well, I’m doing pretty well
For myself right now
I’m pulling down
About eighty thou’
My wife makes forty
(She’s a Vassar grad)
And, hey, for a woman
That’s not half bad
So we’re talkin’ six figures here
But there’s one thing I want to make
Crystal clear
I have to laugh
And I have to scoff
When I hear people
Calling us well off
Anyone who thinks
That we’re sittin’ pretty
Doesn’t know what it’s like
In the big, bad city.

Folk

Clyde Edgerton, a novelist, put out an album to accompany his book Walking Across Egypt. The song, “Quiche Woman in a Barbeque Town” can be heard here and the lyrics of the chorus are printed below:

She’s a quiche woman in a barbeque town
There’s trucks and ticks and tobacco all around
She was Vassar cum laude several years ago
The adjustment will be slow.

Thanks to Virginia A. Smith ’92 for the tip. 

Broadway

• "The Saga of Jenny", written by Kurt Weill/Bertolt Brecht (see clips from Lady in the Dark 1944, Lady in the Dark 1954, and Star!)
• "Some Other Me," written by Brian Yorkey, from if/then.

Pop

• Elvis Presley, "Startin' Tonight" (see clip from Girl Happy)
• Ann-Margret, "My Rival (Is a Baby Blue Racing Car)" (see clip from Viva Las Vegas)
• Roxy Music, “Street Life”:

The lyrics are:

Back to nature boys—Vassar girls too
Watch what you say, or think, or do
Continental-style strasse girls might
But you know exactly if it´s wrong or right
Education is an important key—yes
But the good life´s never won by degrees—no
Pointless passing through Harvard or Yale
Only window shopping—and strictly no sale

Thanks to Ivor Canning for the tip.

Radio

• My Friend Irma — in one episode of this long-running radio show, "Wall Street Magazine" runs a contest for Wall Street secretaries to offer an essay about their most exciting experience.
  

• Fibber McGee & Molly — this extremely popular '30s and '40s radio show frequently featured the hoity-toity Mrs. Uppington looking down her nose at the McGees. Here, in the April 29, 1941 episode, Fibber has gotten himself stuck in some new asphalt paving.
  

• Burns & Allen — the longtime husband-and-wife comic duo had a Vassar joke on their radio program "Rehearsing Next Week's Show" from Nov. 11, 1940 (and again in their TV show in the following decade), as they reminisced about old vaudeville jokes. Enormous thanks to the team at Old-Time Radio Library for their assistance in finding references in the scripts of their voluminous database.