Chanukah comes to West Side Story
mainAll the way from Santa Monica (as Tom Lehrer mght say).
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Wonderful, Norman, wonderful. Thank you.
Chag Urim Sameach!
Larry David would hate it
Well, that was cute! Always nice when parodies actually scan, and this was perfect.
Prompted me to check out the website they mentioned at the end — I highly recommend anyone who liked this does so, if only for the Bohemian Chanukah video.
I’m sending these on to several Jewish friends.
The timing of it seems perfect right now, since the new West Side Story courtesy of Steven Spielberg is coming to US movie theaters just a few days after the current Hanukkah ends.
The timing of NL’s post may be perfect but I gather from the Jewish friends to whom I sent it last night (who had seen it before) that it has been around for a while.
Oh, well, off to make some latkes.
There is no doubt that everyone’s “Jewish Friends had seen”everything “before”, but The ([Upper] West Side) HANUKKAH STORY has been around for even much longer than that. Enjoy making and devouring your latkes!
Ha, ha very clever.
The best bits are parodies of the original lyrics. The not so successful bits just use the melody, just setting text to any other famous melody. Not sure why West Side Story is better than, say, Cats as the template.
First, you are free to make your own arrangement as “catty” as you want. Second, using WSS may indeed be “better” simply because it is musically a better piece. And I actually do like ALW’s feline opus, but LB’s masterpiece is a more impressive compositional accomplishment.
Thanks so much, Norman.
Beautiful!