There's a Small Hotel


"There's a Small Hotel" is a 1936 song composed by Richard Rodgers, with lyrics by Lorenz Hart. Originally written for but dropped from the musical Billy Rose's Jumbo, it was used in On Your Toes, where it was introduced by Ray Bolger and Doris Carson. Betty Garrett sang it in the 1948 film Words and Music, and it was interpolated in the film version of Pal Joey with a Frank Sinatra-Nelson Riddle collaboration.
According to the biography of Lorenz Hart by Frederick Nolan, the song was inspired by a visit that Richard Rodgers made to the Stockton Inn, in Stockton, New Jersey. 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 Belmond El Encanto 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