Then Jake asked Lisa what song she planned to sing, she named two songs "I Feel Pretty" and "What Do the Simple Folk Do?" She ultimately sang neither song. Instead she sang a song that she herself composed, Hula Hana.
Below is information about the two songs that she considered.
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The song "I Feel Pretty" is in the musical West Side Story, which opened on Broadway in 1957 but closed after less than two months. Performances resumed in April 1960 and continued for 249 performances. An album of the show's songs was released in 1957.
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| The 1957 album of the Broadway play |
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| The 1961 album of the movie. |
The following video plays the song "I Feel Pretty" from the 1957 album.
The following video shows the song performed in the 1961 movie.
The character Maria Nunez sings I Feel Pretty happily in the bridal shop where she works. Her happiness will end soon, because she will be told that her boyfriend Tony Wyzek has just killed her brother Bernardo Nunez.
If Lisa Houseman had sung "I Feel Pretty" at the talent show, then we can suppose that her performance would have looked and sounded something like this audition by Ann Rosenblatt.
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The song "What Do the Simple Folk Do?" is in the musical Camelot, which opened on Broadway in 1960. An album of the show's songs was released at the same time.
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| The 1960 album of the Broadway play. |
The Broadway play starred Richard Burton and Julie Andrews. The following video shows them singing the song "What Do the Simple Folk Do?" on television in 1961.
Burton plays King Arthur and Andrews plays Queen Guinevere. They sing the song at a moment when they are suffering the emotional stresses of ruling a kingdom.
A movie based on the play was released in 1967, which was four years after the Dirty Dancing story takes place, so Lisa could have known the song only from the Broadway play and its album. It's likely that the Houseman saw the Broadway play and owned and frequently listened to the album.
The song "What Do the Simple Folk Do?" was a lousy song to select for the talent show for a couple of reasons. 1) She would have had to find a man to sing it with her, and 2) the song is not a crowd-pleaser with a strong melody.
I could not find any YouTube videos of the song being performed by amateurs.
Certainly the only reason why Eleanor Bergstein put that song title into Lisa's mouth was to mock Lisa as a haughty personality.
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I speculate that the Dirty Dancing producers originally planned for Lisa to sing "I Feel Pretty" at the talent show but canceled that plan because of the cost of paying for the song's movie rights. To save money, actress Jane Brucker (who played Lisa Houseman) and choreographer Kenny Ortega wrote the song for free.
I speculate further that Brucker demanded quite a lot of money for the song to be performed in the ABC original movie that was broadcast in May 2017. ABC refused to pay so much money, I speculate, and so arranged for the Lisa character to sing instead the Bob Dylan song "Don't Think Twice".
I loved the song "Don't Think Twice" in the ABC original movie. It's one of my favorite scenes in that movie. The following video shows the song (the video's spoken dialogue is dubbed Spanish, but the song itself is sung in English as broadcast by ABC).
Burton plays King Arthur and Andrews plays Queen Guinevere. They sing the song at a moment when they are suffering the emotional stresses of ruling a kingdom.
A movie based on the play was released in 1967, which was four years after the Dirty Dancing story takes place, so Lisa could have known the song only from the Broadway play and its album. It's likely that the Houseman saw the Broadway play and owned and frequently listened to the album.
The song "What Do the Simple Folk Do?" was a lousy song to select for the talent show for a couple of reasons. 1) She would have had to find a man to sing it with her, and 2) the song is not a crowd-pleaser with a strong melody.
I could not find any YouTube videos of the song being performed by amateurs.
Certainly the only reason why Eleanor Bergstein put that song title into Lisa's mouth was to mock Lisa as a haughty personality.
======
I speculate that the Dirty Dancing producers originally planned for Lisa to sing "I Feel Pretty" at the talent show but canceled that plan because of the cost of paying for the song's movie rights. To save money, actress Jane Brucker (who played Lisa Houseman) and choreographer Kenny Ortega wrote the song for free.
I speculate further that Brucker demanded quite a lot of money for the song to be performed in the ABC original movie that was broadcast in May 2017. ABC refused to pay so much money, I speculate, and so arranged for the Lisa character to sing instead the Bob Dylan song "Don't Think Twice".
I loved the song "Don't Think Twice" in the ABC original movie. It's one of my favorite scenes in that movie. The following video shows the song (the video's spoken dialogue is dubbed Spanish, but the song itself is sung in English as broadcast by ABC).
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An interesting and detailed history of the song "What Do the Simple Folk Do?" is published on that webpage.
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