Get Me to the Church on Time
"Get Me to the Church on Time" is a song composed by Frederick Loewe, with lyrics written by Alan Jay Lerner for the 1956 musical My Fair Lady, where it was introduced by Stanley Holloway.
It is sung by the cockney character Alfred P. Doolittle, a dustman, the father of the show's main character Eliza Doolittle. He has received a surprise bequest of four thousand pounds a year from an American millionaire, raising him to middle-class respectability.[1] Consequently, he feels he must marry Eliza's "stepmother", the woman with whom he has been "living in sin" for many years. Doolittle and his friends have one last spree before the wedding and the song is a plea to his friends not to let his drunken merriment forget his good intentions and make sure he gets to his wedding.[2]
The song contains the memorable lines:
- I'm getting married in the morning!
- Ding dong! The bells are gonna chime.
- Pull out the stopper!
- Let's have a whopper!
- But get me to the church on time!
The song's lyrics are referenced in David Bowie's hit single Modern Love.
Notable recordings
- André Previn and Shelly Manne - My Fair Lady (1956)
- Andy Williams - Andy Williams Sings Rodgers and Hammerstein (1959)
- Rosemary Clooney - Rosie Solves the Swingin' Riddle! (1961)
- Stanley Holloway - My Fair Lady (1964)
- Frank Sinatra - Sinatra at the Sands (1966)
- Mel Tormé - Mel Tormé and the Marty Paich Dektette - Reunion (1988)
- June Christy - Through the Years (1995)
- The Brian Setzer Orchestra - Jumpin' East of Java (2001)
References
- ^ Get Me To The Church On Time. SongFacts.com. Accessed June 3, 2012.
- ^ Lerner Alan Jay: My Fair Lady - The libretto. Penguin Books
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