There's a Small Hotel (song)

"There's a Small Hotel" is a 1936 popular song composed by Richard Rodgers, with lyrics by Lorenz Hart. Originally written for but dropped from the musical Billy Rose's Jumbo (1935), it was then used in On Your Toes (1936), where it was introduced by Ray Bolger and Doris Carson and also interpolated in the film version of Pal Joey (1957) with a fine Frank Sinatra-Nelson Riddle collaboration.

According to the biography of Lorenz Hart by Frederick Nolan (Lorenz Hart - A Poet on Broadway, 1994; Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-510289-4), the song was inspired by a visit that Richard Rodgers made to the Stockton Inn, in Stockton, NJ. Hart reputedly found the melody insistently cloying and often ad-libbed raunchy parody verses, much to Rodgers' chagrin.

Another claimant to be the inspiration for the song is the Montecito Inn, in Santa Barbara County, California. Renovations to the hotel in the 1950s replaced the wishing well, mentioned in the song, by a floral fountain.

Notable recordings

 * Chet Baker - My Favourite Songs, Vol. 2: Straight From The Heart (1988)
 * Josephine Baker - a version of the song with French words as "C'est un Nid Charmant (There's a Small Hotel)" (1937)
 * June Christy - Friendly Session, Vol. 3 (2000)
 * Ella Fitzgerald - Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Rodgers & Hart Songbook (1956)
 * Benny Goodman Quartet - 1954
 * The Hi-Lo's - This Time It's Love (1962)
 * Hal Kemp - the biggest chart hit in 1936, the song's year of introduction.
 * Della Reese - Della, Della, Cha-Cha-Cha (1960)
 * Frank Sinatra - Rodgers & Hart's Pal Joey - from the soundtrack of the Columbia Picture (Capitol, 1957)
 * Bobby Van & Kay Coulter - On Your Toes - a Decca Original Cast Production (1954 revival)