Sunday, February 03, 2008

Snark Attack

Last evening I received an email encomium re: my recent post about songwriter Lew Spence. The missive closed with "Thanks for spewing out a little vitriol about Ms. B. I'm sure Lew would have appreciated it."

I must confess that I especially liked the correspondent's past tense, "would have appreciated," as opposed to the implication that even as we speak, "Lew's up there looking down" sort of nonsense. For when it comes to the subject of an afterlife, I'm afraid I'm in total accord with the late, great Kate Hepburn who believed that "They just stick you in the ground, shovel dirt over you and there's nothing to worry about anymore." (But I digress.)

Lew came up with the title for "Nice 'n' Easy." According to him, he then asked Alan B. for 1/3 lyric credit (the phrase was heard throughout the song) but was unaware that his creative partners had denied him this until he saw the actual Sinatra disc. He only received "music" credit. Not only are there no royalty checks in heaven, there is no heaven. But I, again, digress.

I suppose Lew must've actually invented the phrase Nice 'n' Easy. I always meant to ask him. If he did, then that realllly makes him one historic cat. A veritable wordsmithing Paul Bunyan. It's the twilight of the gods, I tell you once more, the twilight of the gods.

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