Cocktails for Two

Written: 1934

Words and Music by: Sam Coslow and Arthur Johnston

Written for: Murder at the Vanities (movie, 1934)

On the Main Stage at Cafe Songbook

Keely Smith
(arrangement and band led by Billy May)

performing

"Cocktails for Two"

from the album Politely (1958)
subsequently released on Keely Smith Best of the Capitol Years,
and Very Best of Keely Smith

Amazon || iTunes

More Performances of "Cocktails for Two"
in the Cafe Songbook Record/Video Cabinet
(Video credit )

Cafe Songbook Reading Room

"Cocktails for Two"

Critics Corner || Lyrics Lounge

Sam Coslow tells the story of creating "Cocktails for Two" in his autobiography, which bears the same name as the song. It had struck Coslow that during Prohibition not only were alcoholic beverages illegal but drinking songs had been banned on many radio stations and were therefore no longer being written. The end of Prohibition provided a terrific opportunity to write one. He took this idea and the verse he created for the song to his writing partner Arthur Johnston:

Oh what a delight to be
Given the right to be
Happy and carefree again,
No longer slinking,
Respectably drinking
Like civilized ladies and men.

They quickly finished the number and planned to use it in the score they were working on for the movie Murder at the Vanities. The New York musical impresario Earl Carroll (Earl Carroll's Vanities) was one of the producers of the movie and rejected the song but fortunately was overruled. "Cocktails for Two" became the film's biggest hit, when it was introduced in a duet by Carl Brisson and Kitty Carlyle as "part of an extavagant production number. (See Coslow, p. 145.) After it's success in the movie, the song went on to become a standard. (See a selection of recordings by artists over the years in the Cafe Songbook Reocrd/Video Cabinet.)

Peter Mintun comments on and performs "Cocktails for Two"

Spike Jones and His City Slickers, in a 1945 film short, satirize "Cocktails for Two." The Jones recording became a major hit.

Coslow was repeatedly asked how he felt about the Jones recording.
Here is his response:

For some strange reason that I have never fathomed, Spike [whom Coslow knew well] decided it was a good idea to take a graceful, continental-style melody like "Cocktails" and record it as a noisy, slapstick, grotesque novelty. He never told me he was doing it, and the record was a shock to me. I hated it, and thought it was in the worst possible taste, desecrating what I felt was one of my most beautiful songs. To make matters worse, every time I tuned in on a disc jockey show at that time I heard the God-damned thing. It Kept me boiling. (Coslow, p. 145)

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