The Best Song You Are Not Working Out To

My friends make fun of my work-out music, but I truly do not know better way to run than accompanied by showtunes in my ear to keep me going.  Dream Girls???  That sound track is full of songs that start with a beat and just build til I can hardly staaand it.  "Move"?  Yes, please.  The disco version of "One Night Only"?  Fuh-get about it.  And who wouldn't run (as my Dad used to say) "full-tilt-boogie" when listening to the theme song from Wonder Woman?  You can always surrender to the power of thigh high red boots for the two minutes it takes the song to run its course. 

But my favorite... my go to song... the one that I play when I'm just about tuckered out and I don't think I can make it to the end end of my regularly scheduled work-out...is from the musical version of All About Eve, a little show called Applause, which featured Lauren Bacall's Tony winning tenacity and foghorn voice.  Said voice is prominently dispayed in her tour de force song "But Alive". 

Imagine yourself on the treadmill for a moment:

It starts out like they often do, nice and easy, a saunter really, a stride.  But one minute into it and we're cantering, trotting, energized.  The anticipation is palpable and so we've sped up the treadmill up a couple levels.  Then, 2 minutes-  We're up to a nice run, nothing we haven't done before.  We listen to the chorus of disco chicks and dudes scatting the nonsense words "Tralla- Shaba-Daba-dada" and can imagine Lauren throwing down some sassy dance moves.  3minutes in you feel like this must be the mecca!  The high point of the song.  Lauren is braying "ALIIIVE" over and over again at the top of her leather lungs and the chorus of gay boys (this scene takes place in a gay bar in the Village, btw) is chanting "Margo!"  You unflinchingly add another level to the treadmill.  It's done right?  That's it?  But no!  3:24. Key change!!  You are kicking it at a 8 or 8.5, nothing can stop you!  You feel brilliant and brash and bombastic, limp as a puppet and simply fantastic, but alive!  Even when Lauren is done singing the chorus goes on and on and just when you think you can't go any longer they finish it off with one last rousing "MARGO!!!!!"

If you're ass isn't kicked by the end of the song, you didn't do it right. 

Here's a clip from the televised version of the musical to give you a visual, and if you know where to find the full version of this little gem, lemme know, will ya??

 

 

 

And Oh and yeah, while searching for this video I found another treat.   The same song as lip synched by a rather zaftig drag queen lip-synching in front of a chorus of well-built tight shirted "sailors".  I post this only on the condition that you watch the legit version first.  And don't bother thanking me.