My Favorite Things (song)  

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"My Favorite Things" is a show tune from the 1959 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music. John Coltrane played a fourteen-minute version in E minor as the title track of an album recorded in October 1960 and released in March 1961. It became a jazz classic and a signature song for Coltrane.

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The Sound of Music version

The song was first introduced by Mary Martin in the original Broadway production, and sung by Julie Andrews in the 1965 film adaptation.

In the musical the lyrics to the song are a reference to things Maria loves such as 'raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens'. These are the things she selects to fill her mind with when times are bad.

The original Broadway musical places this song in the Mother Abbess's office, just before she sends Maria to serve Captain von Trapp's family as governess to his seven children. However, Ernest Lehman, the screenwriter for the film adaptation, repositioned this song so that Maria would sing it with the children during the thunderstorm scene in her bedroom, replacing "The Lonely Goatherd", which had originally been sung at this point. Many stage productions also make this change, shifting "The Lonely Goatherd" to another scene.

The wintertime imagery of some of the lyrics has made "My Favorite Things" a popular song during the Christmas season, and it often appears on holiday-themed albums and compilations, although in the show and movie it is sung during a summer thunderstorm.

The first section of the melody has the distinctive property of using only the notes 1, 2, and 5 (Do, Re, and Sol) of the scale. Rodgers then harmonized this same section of the melody differently in different stanzas, using a series of minor triads one time and major triads the next.

The song ends with a borrowed line of lyric and notes from Rodgers' earlier composition with Lorenz Hart, "Glad to Be Unhappy," a standard about finding peace in the midst of unrequited love. Using the same two notes for the phrasing of "so sad" in the original song, Rodgers brings the gloom of my "Favorite Things" to a similar upbeat ending – "and then I don't feel so bad."

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Other versions

The song was a hit in 1968 by Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass on A&M 1001 (45rpm). The song has become a jazz standard, and has been performed by artists as diverse as:

Coltrane's album of the same name has been a landmark in the history of jazz for numerous reasons, not least for the rediscovery of soprano sax. One of the best vocal version is performed by Al Jarreau in his first album "1965".

The song was mixed by audio-trickster collective Negativland on their album No Business, which was released in 2005.

The Lennon Sisters' version of this song appeared in Terry Gilliam's 1998 film adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's gonzo novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The song is played during the beginning, juxtaposed with various images from the 1960s.

"My Favorite Things" is also said to have been Michael Jackson's favorite song of all time, alongside Charlie Chaplin's "Smile".

The song was parodied on The Chaser's War on Everything as "My Least Favorite Things".

The song was also parodied in the bridge of the Panic! at the Disco song, "Build God, Then We'll Talk". The nature of the song as a list of objects lends itself to easy parodies with alternate objects, as was done by Doonesbury, Garfield, and many others.

The version of this song performed by Björk (also played the leading role) has been used in Lars von Trier's film Dancer in the Dark (2000).

The version sung by Tony Bennett was used in the HBO mini-series From the Earth to the Moon in episode 4, "1968"

It has also been used recently in Cake, a 2007 advertisement for the Skoda Fabia. The same year, it was used in an advertisement for the MasterCard credit card. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the song was used in commercials for Mitsubishi cars.

A filk version of the song with lyrics revolving around old age, first seen on the Usenet newsgroup alt.idiots in June 2001, has become attached to an urban legend claiming that it was sung by Julie Andrews herself at a benefit concert for AARP.

Lil Wayne and Juelz Santana used the sample tune and different lyrics set to the tune in a song, "Favorite Things", on their Blow: The 'I Can't Feel My Face' Prequel album.

The song was included in the version of the complete musical The Sound of Music as performed at Dingwalls, London by Repetition and the Repetitions in 1980, comprising Nag and Bendle (from The Door and The Window) and Giblet (from the 49 Americans). The album was subsequently released on cassette.

The song is parodied in Billy Crystal's farewell song to comedian Jay Leno on Jay's second-to-last night as host of the Tonight Show. Crystal changes most of the lyrics into various car models.


Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "My Favorite Things (song)" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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