I’ve been singing this song all day. I don’t know why but the lyrics make me smile.
“On the whole buggin’
everlovin’ street!”
Oh, the innocence! There wasn’t an F-bomb in the whole movie. Were gang members ever such lovable bad boys who sang and danced choreographed ‘rumbles’?
Of course not.
But West Side Story made it all seem so real.
I was sixteen when I took a bus downtown to see a matinee showng all by myself. When the lights came up, I tried to surreptitiously wipe the tears from my cheeks before anyone could see. I walked out into the daylight, shocked that the world hadn’t changed. What was WRONG with everybody?
Later, I called and asked Anita, the leader of my own ‘gang’ of girlfriends, what she thought of the movie. I expected her to be as blown away as I was, but no.
“It was so RIDICULOUS,” she howled. “Guys dancing in the streets!”
She had sounded the death knell of our friendship. I couldn’t talk to her after that. How could she LAUGH at the exuberance expressed by those boys in Leonard Bernstein’s groundbreaking ballet?
No one I knew seemed to get it.
All I wanted was to run away to New York, where the real artists were, where tough guys could break into song and jump high in the air… while beating the crap out of each other.
