Madame Spivy: I Love Town

“This is my answer to a man who tried to induce me to live on a farm…”

Ladies and Gentleman, it is time once again to revisit that late great lady of song, Madame Spivy LeVoe (1906-1971), also known simply as Spivy. A lesbian entertainer, nightclub owner and character actress, Spivy has been described as “The Female Noel Coward” – to which I add “…. if he had been born in Brooklyn as Bertha Levine.”

This is our 9th in a series of posts focusing on individual songs recorded by Spivy. Previously, we featured:
The Alley Cat
The Tarantella
Auntie’s Face
100% American Girls
A Tropical Fish
I Brought Culture to Buffalo In The 90’s
I Didn’t Do A Thing Last Night
Why Don’t You?

“I Love Town” is an ode to urban living, specifically New York City. Decades before Alicia Keys and Madonna sang of their love of The Big Apple, long before Liza started spreadin’ the news, before Judy happened to like New York, Spivy loved town. The song appeared on her 78 rpm album Seven Gay Sophisticated Songs, first released in 1939 on the Exclusive label. Later reissues on Commodore and General Records switched out the original cover photo for a Carl Van Vechten portrait.

Of the15 songs Spivy is known to have recorded, 5 of them were written or co-written by John LaTouche. This is one of two that he co-wrote with Goetz Eyck, a German-born musician who would go on to a film career as Peter van Eyck.

Songwriters John LaTouche & Goetz Eyck, aka Peter Van Eyck

I Love Town

I Love Town
Take your old hound dogs with their yelping litters
Give me Pekingeses that have the jitters
Take your old oaked buckets, I’ll have gin and bitters
I Love Town

I feel down
in woodlands lousy with deer and squirrels
Where the women get coy and the men get virile
Mother Nature’s a dirty old girl:
Think of rabbit’s habits

In the sacred portals of New York, the footmen stand in livery
There are no traveling salesmen offering Rural Free Deliveries

I want to live in town
where you hunt in Jaekal’s when you want a fox hide
And you see fair hair of purest peroxide
And you breathe fresh air of carbon monoxide
I Love Town

I hate farms
where the food is freshest and the life the crudest
Give me nightclub life though it seems denudest
Where a gal gets paid for going nudist
I Love Town

I love garbage
give me grapefruit rinds with coffee grounds in ‘em
As for athletics, I’m all again’em
Though I drink at bars, I never chin ‘em
Muscle gives you a bustle

I can’t sleep in lonely country rooms, I rush and buy a ticket
Yet I snore through the traffic swoons without a goddamn cricket

I Love Town
Where Carnation cows have contented faces
And you get your tan in a jar at Macy’s
And sand doesn’t get into awful places
I Love Town!

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I highly recommend Ana Matronic’s Good Time Sallies podcast, which featured two episodes profiling Madame Spivy, with commentary by yours truly.

See Also:
The Alley Cat
The Tarantella
Auntie’s Face
100% American Girls
A Tropical Fish
I Brought Culture to Buffalo In The 90’s
I Didn’t Do A Thing Last Night
Why Don’t You?
Madame Spivy: Movies & Television
Madame Spivy on the Good Time Sallies Podcast
Neeka Shaw: The Forgotten Showgirl
The Colorful World of Carl Van Vechten