My Ship sung from "Lady in the Dark" (Kurt Weill/Ira Gershwin) sung by James Bierney

My Ship
From “Lady in the Dark”
Lyrics by Ira Gershwin
Music by Kurt Weill
James Bierney (baritone)
Uli Schauerte (piano)
The wonderful accompaniment was provided by Uli Schauerte whose CZcams channel can be found here @UliSchauerte and website is www.uli-schauerte.de
On his great website you can find orchestral accompaniments for many Kurt Weill songs, including all of the musical numbers from “The Threepenny Opera” (Die Dreigroschenoper) all painstakingly, and beautifully, made by this excellent musician.
Moss Hart was working on a play about psychoanalysis, which he called “I Am Listening”, when he was approached by composer Kurt Weill - who was looking for a new project. Weill asked him to work on a project called “The Funnies”. Instead Hart proposed that Weill work with him on transforming his play into a musical, and they decided on Ira Gershwin as the lyricist for their “play with music” - which was now to be titled “Lady in the Dark”.
“Lady in the Dark” premiered at New York’s Alvin Theatre on January 23, 1941, to critical acclaim and ran for 467 performances. Gertrude Lawrence introduced “My Ship,” a song which was not only well integrated into the plot but essential to it.
Lawrence starred as Liza, a successful but unhappy magazine editor. She is undergoing analysis and must not only recall a song which she knew in childhood but remember what happened when she last sang it. The scenes move from her office to the office of the psychoanalyst where her recollections are presented in dream sequences. “My Ship” was central to the plot as the arrival of the ship represented Liza’s new found self-awareness, and it is her singing of the song that brings the ship in. And since this was a song from Liza’s past, Kurt Weill sought to give the melody a turn-of-the-century feeling.
My ship has sails that are made of silk,
The decks are trimmed with gold,
And of jam and spice there's a paradise in the hold.
My ship's aglow with a million pearls
And rubies fill each bin,
The sun sits high in a sapphire sky when my ship comes in.
I can wait the years
Till it appears
One fine day one spring,
But the pearls and such
They won't mean much if there's missing just one thing.
I do not care if that day arrives
That dream need never be,
If the ship I sing doesn't also bring
My own true love to me,
If the ship I sing doesn't also bring my own true love to me.