I'm trying to work up "Puttin' On the Ritz". It was apparently written in 1930. I haven't really decided which verses and bridges to use -- the original words were about going down to Harlem and watching the servants spend their pay. There were a bunch of verses added subsequently, to replace the offensive ones, so there's no "real" version anymore. The Pasadena Roof Orchestra version I have uses some of each, so I may follow their lead.
I need a lot of work on the guitar part, especially the bridge. There's a lot of bass line, going pretty quickly. Of course, possibly a bigger problem is trying to actually pull it out in public -- the whole song seems too peculiar...
I was also surprised to like "Let It Be" so much. It's always seemed a little "much", but it plays so well on guitar, and I like singing it (now that I've transposed to a rational vocal range). Maybe it feels better because of the current political climate...
I worked on "Someone to Watch Over Me" some more last night. I'm liking it more and more as my arrangement begins to sound righter to me. It was, and is, clearly, a chick song, but lots of guys sing it anyway, so I guess it's OK. I suppose if Sting can do it, I can. (He says, "There's a little lamb that's lost in the woods", instead of "I'm a little...". I may steal that idea.) I'm trying to get the guitar part smoother -- getting the hang of that "four inside strings" diminished chord. In this case, it's a Cdim, x3424x. It helps me to think of it as a two-finger E7 shape (the 030200 part) *and* an A7 shape (the 004040 part), played at the same time.
The "real" song has one of those traditional, completely different, intro parts, which I don't have any chords to, and most folks don't know that part anyway. The remaining song is kind of short, so there's definitely an instrumental verse in there for Warren. I think it'll go like "Stardust", with an instrumental verse, then a repeat of the final section(s).
