It’s been a week since I listened to that cast album of Irving Berlin’s Mr. President, but some of the songs are still swirling around in my brain. Of course, I used to have the album when I was a teenager, so I knew the score by heart in those days.

Nanette Fabray played the First Lady and based on the evidence of the recording, she did so with her usual panache.

Her first solo was a number called “The First Lady” in which she complains about the difficulties of being in that position. Given that the show was written sixty years ago, the lyrics make a lot of assumptions that are no longer the case, such as that the cabinet members would all be men.

It’s a pleasant tune with a few good jokes and a few that are rather dated, still Fabray gives it her all, but what strikes me is how she emphasizes those final D sounds in “The First Lady of the lan-d”. Perhaps she was too closely miked?