Music like Manhattan

"Manhattan" is a popular song and part of the Great American Songbook. It has been performed by The Supremes, Lee Wiley, Oscar Peterson, Blossom Dearie, Tony Martin, Dinah Washington, Ella Fitzgerald and Mel Torme, among many others. It is often known as "We'll Have Manhattan" based on the opening line. The music was written by Richard Rodgers and the words by Lorenz Hart for the 1925 revue "Garrick Gaieties". It was introduced by Sterling Holloway (later the voice of the animated Winnie the Pooh) and June Cochran.

The song appears to describe, in several choruses, the simple delights of Manhattan for a young couple in love who are blissfully unaware of their surroundings. The joke is that these 'delights' are really some of the worst, or at best cheap, delights that New York has to offer; for example, the stifling, humid stench of the subway in summertime is described as "balmy breezes," while the noisy, grating pushcarts on Mott Street are "gently gliding by." A particular Hart delight is the rhyming "spoil" with "boy and goyl".