'I Can't Get Started' a Bunny Berigan classic

Allposters.com

Q. I heard a great big band recording of a song titled "I Can't Get Started" by a bandleader, new to me, Bunny Berigan. What can you tell me about him and the recording?

A. We agree "I Can't Get Started" by Bunny Berigan and his orchestra is a big band classic. Bunny is the vocalist. Here is the sad tale of Berigan;

Musician/bandleader, Bunny Berigan had a short life...born in 1908 and died in 1942. His career hauntingly paralleled that of Bix Beiderbeck. Both Bunny Berigan's and Bix Beiderbeck's individualistic styles, compromising in playing with commercial bands, losing battle with alcoholism, and disintegration and death followed a similar pattern.

Bunny Berigan's first big hit records were with the Benny Goodman big band. For classic Bunny Berigan solos hear Goodman's version of King Porter Stomp and Sometimes I'm Happy both recorded in 1935. His solo on Tommy Dorsey's recording of Marie is a classic as well.

For up-tempo Bunny Berigan hear Gangbuster's Holiday also recorded with his own band or Blue Lou with the Metronome All Stars of 1939. Bunny Berigan won the Metronome Poll in both 1937 and 1939.

Bunny Berigan's biggest hit was a ballad, recorded under his own name, in which he played and sang was the now classic I Can't Get Started. Bunny Berigan’s recording of I Can’t Get Started was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1974.


The song, surprisingly, was introduced by comedian Bob Hope. Hope sang it to Eve Arden in the Broadway revue Ziegfeld Follies of 1936. In a New York Times article, theater and film critic Vincent Canby said, “It was sung for laughs, with (Eve) Arden making caustic comments about Mr. Hope’s passion.”

Here are the Berigan lyrics to the great standard written by Vernon Duke (music) and Ira Gershwin (lyrics).
I've been around the world in a plane
I've settled revolutions in Spain
The North Pole I have charted
But man I can't get started with you
And at the golf course I'm under par
Metro-Goldwyn wants me to star
I've got a house and a show place
But can't get no place with you
You're so supreme
The lyrics I write of you
Dream, dream, day and night of you
Scheme just for the sight of you
But what good does it do
I've been consulted by Franklin D.
Greta Garbo has had me to tea
But now I'm broken hearted
Can't get started with you:

If you listen to more modern versions of the song....note that the lyrics change with each decade.