Anything You Can Do (song)

"Anything You Can Do" is a song composed by Irving Berlin for the 1946 Broadway musical, Annie Get Your Gun.[1] The song is a duet, with one male singer and one female singer attempting to outdo each other in increasingly complex tasks.

In the musical, the song sets the scene for the climactic sharpshooting contest between Annie Oakley and Frank Butler.[2] Its most memorable lines are, "Anything you can do I can do better; I can do anything better than you." The song was first performed in Annie Get Your Gun by Ethel Merman and Ray Middleton.[3]

During the song, they argue playfully about who can, for example, sing softer, sing higher, sing sweeter, and hold a note for longer, and boast of their abilities and accomplishments, such as opening safes and living on bread and cheese, although Annie always seems to counter Frank's argument. Neither can "bake a pie," though.[4]

Notable versions

Other recorded versions

Variants

References

  1. ↑ Annie Get Your Gun listing at Internet Broadway Database ibdb.com, accessed November 16, 2008
  2. ↑ Mordden, Ethan (8 August 2013). Anything Goes: A History of American Musical Theatre. Oxford University Press, USA. p. 172. ISBN 978-0-19-931357-0.
  3. ↑ Flinn, Caryl (2007). Brass Diva: The Life and Legends of Ethel Merman. University of California Press. p. 455. ISBN 978-0-520-22942-6.
  4. ↑ Corp., Hal Leonard (1 February 2006). Lyrics (Songbook): Complete Lyrics for Over 1000 Songs from Broadway to Rock. Hal Leonard. p. 78. ISBN 978-1-4584-6657-0.
  5. ↑ TV.com entry on episode S1E11 of That's Life
  6. ↑ Schechter, Scott (25 August 2006). Judy Garland: The Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Legend. Taylor Trade Publishing. p. 155. ISBN 978-1-4616-3555-0.
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