Original version(s)

• originally released by The Drifters, produced by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller (Atlantic 45-2025, 1959)

 

FZ album(s) in which song has appeared

• none

 

Tour(s) on which song is known to have been performed (main source: FZShows, v. 7.1)

• February-March 1988 (North America)—known performances: 1

 

Comments

Charles Ulrich, August 13, 2018

I think I finally figured out all the words Ike sings against the 1812 Overture on 88/02/10 Washington:

There goes my baby
Moving on down the line
Wonder where, wonder why
Wonder how they stuck this in

That Reader’s Digest
No unwanted passages
They don’t want it, they don’t want it
You can’t understand the rest

Whereas Ben E. King of The Drifters sang:

There goes my baby
Moving on down the line
Wonder where, wonder where
Wonder where she is bound

I broke her heart
And made her cry-y-y
Now I'm alone, so all alone
What can I do? What can I do?

Here's what Mike Keneally wrote:

When that was done we went into our "Reader's Digest-Condensed 'No Unwanted Melodies' Medley" of "Aida", "Lohengrin", "Carmen" and "The 1812 Overture" with "There Goes My Baby" being sung over the top of it. "1812" with "There's Goes My Baby" over the top of it means that while the horns were going "Dut-dut-dut-dut-dut-dut Dut Dunt Duhhhn", which I think Bobby was also playing French Horn on, Paul Carmen and I were playing the slow counter-melody under that, and while those things were going on Frank and Ike were on top singing "There goes my baby". It was cool. Probably a one-shot deal.

The "slow countermelody" is God Save The Tsar, the national anthem of the Russian Empire. (The tune was also borrowed for the English hymn God The Omnipotent, but that's obviously not what Tchaikovsky had in mind.) It's much more audible in the Munich performance, which doesn't have There Goes My Baby against it (or Aida at the beginning of the medley).

 

Conceptual Continuity

Reader's Digest No Unwanted Melodies

• Aida (Act II, Scene 2)
• Lohengrin (Act III, Prelude)
• Carmen
• 1812 Overture
• There Goes My Baby