New York, New York (On the Town)

"New York, New York" is a song from the 1944 musical On the Town and the 1949 MGM musical film of the same name. The music was written by Leonard Bernstein and the lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. The best known line of this song is, "New York, New York, a helluva town. The Bronx is up but the Battery's down." For the film version, the word "helluva" was changed to "wonderful" to appease the Production Code offices.

It is not to be confused with the "New York, New York" popularized by Frank Sinatra in 1980 and written by John Kander and Fred Ebb for the 1977 Martin Scorsese film musical of the same name, in which it was performed by Liza Minnelli.

Cultural references

• The song was parodied on The Simpsons episode "Boy-Scoutz N the Hood", when Bart Simpson and Milhouse sing about "Springfield, Springfield". Another character runs in and starts to sing "New York, New York," at which Bart and Milhouse point him in the direction of New York while Bart exclaims "New York is that a-way, man!".
• It was also parodied twice on The Critic.
• The song was parodied in the first issue of Sam and Max, in which Sam sings the song with the third line "and the mimes are food for the bums underground," identifying it as from a musical "about a quaint French circus that comes to town and is immediately cannibalized by the local mole men."
• It was also parodied on the Australian......
...

Read More