THERE’S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS [Annie Get Your Gun; 1946; music & lyrics by Irving Berlin] The ultimate theater song, an anthem that captures the spirit of performers, their resiliency: “You get word before the show has started that your favorite uncle died at dawn/Top of that, your pa and ma have parted, you’re broken-hearted, but you go on…” This would have ranked higher, certainly Top 10 on this list, but in the context of Annie Get Your Gun, it’s sort of a throwaway, where the song is great but Berlin and writers Dorothy and Herbert Fields have to find a reason plot-wise to include it. So, in the show, Frank Butler, Charlie Davenport and Buffalo Bill describe show business to relative newcomer Annie Oakley with this marvelous ode. But it’s such a good number that it overrides any misgivings that we may have for it being shoved in the show for no other reason than it being an obviously great song.
Songs with Banjo from Harold Hagler
