“Cocktails for Two”: Primary Research

This rather serious-looking record is more than it seems.

This song, “Cocktails for Two”, is a satire of a song of the same name. Sam Coslow, a songwriter during the Big Band era, wrote the original “Cocktails for Two”. The song was released in 1934. Its lyrics are celebratory of the end of Prohibition in the United States. The 21st Amendment, which ended Prohibition, was ratified in December of the previous year. It opens with a chorus of voices singing:

“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.”
Lyrics by Arthur Johnston and Sam Coslow, cr. greatamericansongbook.net

The song became a huge hit, earning itself renditions by famous names such as Bing Crosby and Duke Ellington. However, “Cocktails for Two” is most famous for being the subject of Spike Jones’s satire. In 1945, Jones, who was a friend of Coslow, released his own rendition of the song along with a film short. At first, the song seems perfectly normal; vocals by Carl Grayson use the familiar lyrics from Coslow’s original hit. After the opening refrain, it quickly descends into a flurry of quirky sound effects. The sound effects, including gunshots, clown horns, and a sequence of rhythmic hiccuping, take humorous jabs at the original lyrics.

A romantic rendezvous takes a turn towards mayhem in this short film from 1945. Can you spot Spike Jones behind the bar?

Coslow’s “Cocktails for Two” was certainly not the first nor last song to get the “Jones treatment”; Spike Jones and his band the City Slickers recorded “satirical arrangements of popular songs and classical music” from the “early 1940s to mid 1950s”. Spike Jones and the City Slickers wrote songs for radio and eventually starred in their own radio program and television series. Spike Jones found massive success through his satire—but how did Coslow feel about the rendition? Put simply, he hated it. In his autobiography, Cocktails for Two: The Many Lives of Giant Songwriter Sam Coslow, Coslow stated:

“For some strange reason that I have never fathomed, Spike 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.”
Sam Coslow, Cocktails for Two: The Many Lives of Giant Songwriter Sam Coslow cr. greatamericansongbook.net

When I mentioned to my dad that I was working on this project, he immediately recommended that I look into a song by Spike Jones. He told me about his memories of listening to Spike Jones recordings on his parents’ 78s as a kid. This particular recording is one that he likes and remembers well. In addition to the connection it has to my dad’s memories, I decided to pick this recording because I was intrigued by how it combines music and humor into one. It is not a far throw from memes and parodies that we share on the internet today. I also liked the story of the original song being about the end of Prohibition, and the controversy between Jones and Coslow over the use of Coslow’s piece. Whether it be 1945 or 2020, I suppose that people will always be using technology to find new ways to get laughs (along with a fair amount of drama).