11. Aloneness: By Myself

no one knows
better than I
myselfI'm by myselfalone

music by Arthur Schwartz, words by Howard Dietz

Alone again, naturally. But lonely again? You decide.

For me, this song has a bit of a whistling-in-the-dark character to it. The narrator is trying awfully hard to convince himself that he’ll be just fine on his own. This time will be different.

I know “By Myself” from one of my favorite movie musicals, Vincente Minelli’s “The Band Wagon” (1953) where it was sung by Fred Astaire. The movie collected some terrific songs by one of the greatest songwriting teams ever, Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz, with a script by one of the greatest script writing teams ever, Betty Comden and Adolph Green.

1953 was a good year for Comden and Green. That year, “Wonderful Town,” their collaboration with Leonard Bernstein (see “A Little Bit In Love”) won the Best Musical Tony.

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