Song of the Day #4,537: ‘Chicago (Live)’ – Rufus Wainwright

Today’s SOTD is the closing track on Rufus Wainwright’s 2007 live album Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall. As this performance was a song-for-song recreation of Judy Garland’s original 1961 Judy at Carnegie Hall show, it was the final track for her as well.

‘Chicago,’ sometimes subtitled ‘That Toddlin’ Town’ is the less famous of two Chicago songs first popularized by Frank Sinatra. The other is, of course, ‘My Kind of Town.’

I got the surprise, the surprise of my life
I had to stop and stare
I saw a man dancing with his own wife
And you will never guess where

Chicago, Chicago
The toddlin’ town, the toddlin’ town
Chicago, Chicago
I’ll see you around, I love it
Bet your bottom dollar you lose the blues in Chicago, Chicago
The town that Billy Sunday could not shut down

On State Street, that great street
I wish I could stay, I wish I could stay
They do things they don’t do on Broadway, say
I had the time, the time of my life
I saw a man who danced with his wife
In Chicago, Chicago

Chicago, Chicago
Free and easy town, brassy, breezy town
Chicago, Chicago
Let me cool my heels right down at Marshall Fields
Come and walk with me along the lake to the drake
Holler and hoot, all through the loop
Shout how now to Mrs. O’Leary’s cow
No she-she, life is peachy

Chicago, we’ll meet at the Pump Room
Ambassador East, to say the least
On shish kebab, and breasts of squab
We will feast, and get fleece
Don’t tell me sin is rampant and rife
Think of that man who danced with his wife

In Chicago, Chicago
I’m had a shindig in the wonderful, windy town

One thought on “Song of the Day #4,537: ‘Chicago (Live)’ – Rufus Wainwright

  1. Dana Gallup says:

    I’m not sure how less famous this song is than “My Kind of Town.” I do know that one has to either be a huge Rufus fan, gay or both to love this album.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.