Sing What?

Length of Shower:  Is it pronounced 'show-er' or 'shou-uh'? --Today I thought about the song, "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off."

Remember this song?  It was written by George and Ira Gershwin and most popularly known to be sung by the famous Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong.  You can listen to a nice recording, although not by them, here.  It is a song about accents and differences, but today I thought about how funny it would have been to a singer picking up the sheet music for the first time.  Can you imagine seeing on the page:

"You say neither and I say neither, you say either and I say either.  Neither, neither, either, either let's call the whole thing off."

I imagine the first singer stopping right there and being totally confused.  "Um, I'm sorry I don't get it.  What's going on and why are they calling anything off?  It seems to me they are on the same page.  They say the same words to each other and everything."  

Then of course when it's explained to the singer about the different ways to say these words I imagine the singer on the next take jumping to either side of the microphone like someone playing both parts in a two person scene or duet.  Hahahaha, that cracks me up!

Of course the beauty of the song is that couples, or even friends for that matter, shouldn't let little inconsequential differences break up a good thing.  That, of course, is also good advice to keep locked away.  But I just keep thinking about that first singer and how utterly confused they must have been...LOL!

I mean just look at it in print:
"You say Potato and I say Potato, you say Tomato and I say Tomato...."  You can understand that first singer's confusion, right?  Hahahaha.

(On a side note:  Watch the great Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dance to this song with skates on in the film Shall We Dance and tell me why anyone would think he was anything but the greatest dancer to ever live!)