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1946 song from the musical Annie Get Your Gun
"Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better) " is a
show tune 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 almost always seems to counter Frank's argument. Neither can "bake a pie," though.
[4]
Notable versions
Ethel Merman and
Ray Middleton from original cast recording (1946).
[5]
Bing Crosby ,
Dick Haymes and
The Andrews Sisters —recorded for Decca Records on March 19, 1947.
[6]
Groucho Marx and his daughter
Melinda Marx (a child at the time) in home movie footage used for select TV specials.
Ethel Merman and
Howard Keel (
1950 )
Betty Hutton and
Howard Keel in the
1950 film version of the musical
Mary Martin and
John Raitt on the 1957 National Tour recording
Doris Day and
Robert Goulet for the Columbia Records album
Annie Get Your Gun (
1963 )
In 1963,
Heidi Brühl and
Robert Trehy performed a German version in the stage version of this musical at the
Theater des Westens in Berlin.
Ethel Merman and
Bruce Yarnell in the 1966 revival recording.
Dusty Springfield and Freddie Paris on Bandstand (1967).
Robert Morse and an office computer in 1968 TV series
That's Life , episode S1E11 "Bobby's Pink Slip"
[7]
Two dogs in
The Goodies episode "
Kitten Kong " (1971).
Barbara Walters and
Howard Cosell on
Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell in 1975 debating who interviews people better.
Ethel Merman and
Miss Piggy (1976) in
The Muppet Show , episode
1.22
In 1977,
Tina Arena and John Bowles recorded a version for their album
Tiny Tina and Little John .
In 1990,
Kidsongs released
Ride the Roller Coaster , which contained a version of this song, where they play various arcade games at the
Six Flags Magic Mountain amusement park.
Fran Drescher and
Madeline Zima (1994) in
The Nanny , episode
S1E22 "I Don't Remember Mama"
Michael Jordan and
Mia Hamm , Gatorade "Michael vs. Mia" commercial (1999), performed by
Sophia Ramos
[8]
[9]
[10]
Bernadette Peters and
Tom Wopat in the 1999 Broadway revival version of the musical
Lewis Hamilton and
Fernando Alonso in a 2007
Mercedes-Benz commercial with
Mika Häkkinen performing the last line.
Blaire Elbert and Madeline Powell
Cactus Cuties , performed at Cactus Theater in Texas in 2008.
American rapper
J. Cole used the "Anything you can do" line in his 2010 single "
Who Dat ".
Lindsay Pearce sang a
mashup of "
Anything Goes "/"Anything You Can Do" in the
Glee 2011 third-season premiere, "
The Purple Piano Project ".
Dirty Rice sampled the opening lines of the song in the
116 Clique song "Envy", from the 2011 album Man Up by the 116 Clique.
Laura Osnes and
Jeremy Jordan live at Cafe Carlyle in 2012.
[11] [
better source needed ]
Internet comedy personalities
Smosh performed a parody of the song in 2014 titled "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Dumber", as a tie-in to promote the film
Dumb and Dumber To .
Julianne Hough and
Derek Hough on their Move Live on Tour in 2014.
Dame Shirley Bassey performed this song with the group
Blake on the 2016 TV Special titled David Walliams Celebrates Dame Shirley Bassey .
Barbra Streisand and
Melissa McCarthy perform the duet as part of Streisand's 2016 album
Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway , with altered lyrics.
AP-5 and
Chopper on the
Star Wars Rebels 2017 episode "Double Agent Droid", argue about their capabilities using lines from the song.
Darci Lynne and
Terry Fator with their two puppets, Petunia and Winston on the finale of
season 12 of
America's Got Talent .
Abby Wambach and
Usain Bolt in a 2021
Gatorade commercial, also featuring
Michael Jordan and
Mia Hamm at the end in a reference to a 1999 commercial featuring Jordan and Hamm.
Other recorded versions
Variants
References
^
Annie Get Your Gun listing at Internet Broadway Database ibdb.com, accessed November 15, 2008
^ Mordden, Ethan (August 8, 2013).
Anything Goes: A History of American Musical Theatre . Oxford University Press, USA. p. 172.
ISBN
978-0-19-931357-0 .
^ Flinn, Caryl (2007).
Brass Diva: The Life and Legends of Ethel Merman . University of California Press. p.
455 .
ISBN
978-0-520-22942-6 .
^
Lyrics (Songbook): Complete Lyrics for Over 1000 Songs from Broadway to Rock . Hal Leonard Publishing Corporation. February 1, 2006. p. 78.
ISBN
978-1-4584-6657-0 .
^
"allmusic.com" . allmusic.com . Retrieved July 28, 2017 .
^
"A Bing Crosby Discography" . BING magazine . International Club Crosby. Retrieved July 28, 2017 .
^
TV.com
entry on episode S1E11 [
permanent dead link ] of That's Life
^
"DOES MIKE LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAMM? MJ, MIA IN GATORADE SPOT" .
Sports Business Journal . March 26, 1999. Retrieved March 31, 2021 .
^ Jere Longman (June 11, 1999).
"SOCCER; Show Time for Reluctant Soccer Superstar" .
The New York Times . Retrieved March 31, 2021 .
^ Michael Hirsley (May 16, 1999).
"WOMEN ATHLETES MAKE THEIR PITCH TO CLOSE SPORTS ADVERTISING GAP" .
Chicago Tribune . Retrieved March 31, 2021 .
^ Archived at
Ghostarchive and the
Wayback Machine :
"Anything You Can Do (feat. Jeremy Jordan)" .
YouTube .
^ Schechter, Scott (August 25, 2006).
Judy Garland: The Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Legend . Taylor Trade Publishing. p. 155.
ISBN
978-1-4616-3555-0 .
^
"Neil Patrick Harris and Former Tony Host Hugh Jackman Face Off" .
Playbill . June 13, 2011. Retrieved May 17, 2017 .
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