Having nothing particular in mind for a weekly tune this week, I asked Kate to request something and she suggested There’s a Small Hotel.  Why?  Just because she likes it!

It may have slipped her mind that I already recorded it once for my CD or maybe she thinks that you just can’t get enough of Small Hotel, but in any case, I thought I’d give it another whirl.

There’s a Small Hotel is by Rodgers and Hart, of course, written in 1936 for the Broadway show On Your Toes and the song was introduced by Ray Bolger and Doric Carson..

Wikipedia says that the hotel in question is the El Encanto in the Riviera neighborhood of Santa Barbara, though I always heard it was inspired by the Stockton Inn in New Jersey across the river from New Hope, Pennsylvania.  I suppose any wishing well will do.  In any case, the song is a solid standard.  This version is a little less fancy than the one on the CD.  Click above to hear it.  The lyrics are below.

There’s a small hotel

With a wishing well.

I wish that we were there together.

There’s a bridal suite

One room nice and neat

Complete for us to share together.

Looking through the window

You can see a distant steeple

Not a sign of people,

Who wants people?

When the steeple bell

Says “Good night, sleep well,”

We’ll thank our small hotel 

[ending tag]:

We’ll creep into our little shell

And will thank that small hotel together.