There's A Small Hotel

Album: On Your Toes (1936)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Rodgers & Hart, the popular songwriting team behind some of Broadway's most memorable tunes, including "My Funny Valentine," "The Lady is a Tramp," and "Bewitched, Bothered And Bewildered," wrote this for the 1935 musical extravaganza Jumbo, but it didn't make the cut. The following year, it landed in the Broadway musical On Your Toes, starring Ray Bolger as an ex-vaudevillian who gets mixed up with the mob. The role was written for Fred Astaire, but the dancer didn't think the character meshed with his suave and sophisticated persona. So Bolger, just three years shy of his iconic role as The Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz, took the lead.

    Bolger and his costar Doris Carson introduce "There's A Small Hotel," about a cozy hideaway that houses a bridal suite and a wishing well.
  • According to Frederick Nolan's biography of Lorenz Hart, the songwriters were inspired by the Stockton Inn in Stockton, New Jersey, which was a popular getaway for New York artists and entertainers (and indeed featured a stone wishing well). Hart, who thought the melody was too sappy, allegedly locked himself in the men's room of New Haven's Shubert Theater to write the lyrics.
  • Frank Sinatra sings this in the 1957 movie Pal Joey, while he eyes Rita Hayworth on the dance floor.
  • Ella Fitzgerald covered this on her 1956 album Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Rodgers and Hart Song Book.
  • Eddie Albert and Vera Zorina sing this in the 1939 film adaptation of On Your Toes.

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

David Bowie Lyrics Quiz

David Bowie Lyrics QuizMusic Quiz

How well do you know your David Bowie lyrics? Take this quiz to find out.

Rick Springfield

Rick SpringfieldSongwriter Interviews

Rick has a surprising dark side, a strong feminine side and, in a certain TV show, a naked backside. But he still hasn't found Jessie's Girl.

They Might Be Giants

They Might Be GiantsSongwriter Interviews

Who writes a song about a name they found in a phone book? That's just one of the everyday things these guys find to sing about. Anything in their field of vision or general scope of knowledge is fair game. If you cross paths with them, so are you.

Jon Foreman of Switchfoot

Jon Foreman of SwitchfootSongwriter Interviews

Switchfoot's frontman and main songwriter on what inspires the songs and how he got the freedom to say exactly what he means.

Daniel Lanois

Daniel LanoisSongwriter Interviews

Daniel Lanois on his album Heavy Sun, and the inside stories of songs he produced for U2, Peter Gabriel, and Bob Dylan.

Sam Phillips

Sam PhillipsSongwriter Interviews

Collaborating with T Bone Burnett, Leslie Phillips changed her name and left her Christian label behind - Robert Plant, who recorded one of her songs on Raising Sand, is a fan.