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Why is this song titled De Lovely. Pretty much most of the musical theatre books I've read call it "It's Delovely". I could quote you examples, such as Steven Suskin's Showtunes, and various CD sleeve notes., not to mention 'The Complete Lyrics of Cole Porter', and the "programme", well flyer actually, from Ian Marshall Fisher's Discovering Lost Musicals concert staging of "Red Hot & Blue". At the very least, even if you guys decide not to change the article's name, could we at least have a suitable redirect, please. Emma 21:39, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
- The way we have it is how ASCAP shows it here, but they also have a whole bunch of variations at the bottom (with or without the "It's", and spaces, and dashes, etc.). Should we go with an original copy of sheet music from when it was written, or see which variation is the most consistent with modern recordings and sheet music? -- Ken (talk) 05:38, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
- We generally use ASCAP over musical theatre books except in cases where provable mistakes or misconceptions have been made (see Talk:Fugue for Tinhorns), since that's how it was legally registered, as far as we know (and for that matter, it's also why the biopic was called De Lovely, and it listed the song as such in its credits). In the unlikely event anyone can find a copy or scanned image of Porter's original sheet music, that might be worth looking at, but that's generally what we go by. ASCAP was founded in 1914, so the likes of Porter, Jerome Kern, and others were members. Porter wrote the song in 1936, so it seems reasonable to trust the registration in this case. And Emma, anyone can create a redirect, not just admins, so feel free to do so. We do that in lots of similar cases, but sometimes they get overlooked. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 06:32, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
- One area where ASCAP *is* incredibly erratic and often even erroneous, however, is punctuation (many songs even without variants miss apostrophes and such). Still doing some digging, but it's possible a move to De-Lovely (which seems to be the most commonly listed version) is warranted. Looking through the NY TImes archive, at least as much as I could without buying articles, it appears that "De-Lovely" was how it was covered in the original reviews, in articles on Ethel Merman, and so on in the 1930s. IBDB, which generally (but likely not always) uses the original playbills as their source, lists it as 'It's De-Lovely." But in cases like this, where it's all murky, we tend to default to ASCAP, so right now, I'd say leave as is, but certainly anyone is free to park other evidence (in particular, less contemporary evidence, since so many songs have had their names altered or misremembered or listed, even in playbills, once they've become popular standards and with the passage of time. Even "Bein' Green" (which was originally "Green" but subsequently officially retitled) has been incorrectly listed on various (non-Sesame) CDs, programs, and on and on. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 06:43, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks for explaining. I understand now. But thanks also to Merrystar for doing the redirect (I thought that was a good idea Emma 12:13, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
- One area where ASCAP *is* incredibly erratic and often even erroneous, however, is punctuation (many songs even without variants miss apostrophes and such). Still doing some digging, but it's possible a move to De-Lovely (which seems to be the most commonly listed version) is warranted. Looking through the NY TImes archive, at least as much as I could without buying articles, it appears that "De-Lovely" was how it was covered in the original reviews, in articles on Ethel Merman, and so on in the 1930s. IBDB, which generally (but likely not always) uses the original playbills as their source, lists it as 'It's De-Lovely." But in cases like this, where it's all murky, we tend to default to ASCAP, so right now, I'd say leave as is, but certainly anyone is free to park other evidence (in particular, less contemporary evidence, since so many songs have had their names altered or misremembered or listed, even in playbills, once they've become popular standards and with the passage of time. Even "Bein' Green" (which was originally "Green" but subsequently officially retitled) has been incorrectly listed on various (non-Sesame) CDs, programs, and on and on. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 06:43, 4 December 2008 (UTC)