“One of the greats”: Martin Short’s favourite songs of all time
There are few presences more appealing than Martin Short. The diminutive comics beaming ways are a form of adult comfort blanket. As he put it himself, “My natural state is to be happy. I’m naturally buoyant. I wake up feeling, ‘What a great morning!’ I’ve had some tragedy in my life, absolutely, but I don’t know one human being who hasn’t. You either learn from it and become empowered by it, or you become a victim to it. It’s life, after all.”
That sense of triumphing joy over tragedy comes across in everything he does. His latest turn teaming up with his old friend Steve Martin alongside Selena Gomez has seen him rise to the top once again in Only Murders in the Building. The unlikely true crime podcasting trio have, as the script puts it, made the familiar tale of investigations into grizzly deaths somehow “cosy”.
Among the cast, there is an endearing sense of camaraderie and fun. In other shows and movies, it can sometimes be grating when it seems like the actors are just having a lark at your expense, but, to the contrary, Martin, Short and Gomez never let it become overbearing or something that gets in the way of the gripping story and great writing. In this glowing instance, it simply comes across as a love of performing.
That is something Short has always had spades of. “When kids like Steven Spielberg were eight and nine and ten, they had little cameras, and that’s all they wanted to do. When I was ten, I was in my attic pretending to host my own variety show. Spielberg wasn’t. That’s why he’s a film director, and I’m doing what I’m doing,” he once said. In his career, he has carried that party forward.
As he has also commented, “I’ve chosen to treat my life more like a party than something to stress about.” As everybody knows, all good parties need a good playlist—Short’s is an encapsulation of his life, right down to pathos beyond his pearly smile.
“There’s certain things that, in the arts, if you’re flipping on your TV and there’s Annie Hall you just stay with it.”
Martin Short
When the Father of the Bride star curated a radio show of his favourite songs for KCRW, he picked out a few mellower cuts that illuminated an insight into his life when the cameras aren’t rolling. Speaking about fellow Canadian, Joni Mitchell, and her anthem ‘For Free’, Short commented, “It’s an amazing song. You just listen to the lyrics and you’re taken right into the story of her basically seeing a husker on the corner playing his clarinet and she starts reflecting on how much she gets paid, how much attention is given her, her fabulous life, and yet, she’s hearing a guy playing what she thinks is just equally or, if not, better music, and yet, no one’s stopping to pay attention to him.”
But that wasn’t the only classic cut from the counterculture age that Short adores. “For me, you have to pick something from the Beatles and, to me, ‘Ticket to Ride’,” he explained. “I don’t think there’s any single that better reflects the ambition, tension and pure pop genius that makes them the Beatles.”
Espousing the excellence of their experimentalism, he continued, “I think the bridge is brilliant, you know, the band suddenly, frantically picks up the pace and the tune becomes precociously groovy even as it reflects the nervous desperation lurking beneath the soaring melody. I just think it’s one of the great, perfect Beatles songs.”
Naturally, with Martin, there is also a smattering of old-school showbiz in his record collection. He loves the razzmatazz of the Golden Age, and few people represent that better than his inspiration, Frank Sinatra. “Boy, could that guy sing,” Martin comments while picking out ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ as his crowning achievement. “Sinatra’s version is the most recognised, mainly due to Quincy Jones’ arrangement, which is a 3/4 Waltz time changed to 4/4 to give it the swing feel that Frank brings to it,” he said, highlighting his musicality.
And perhaps proving why there is a recurring arsenal of jokes about a certain Geordie musician in Only Murder in the Building, Short also heaped praise upon another of his favourites. “I’m a huge Sting fan. I was going to put ‘Roxanne’ down as one of my favourites, but just thought it was too obvious, so I tried to be more esoteric,” he said while picking out ‘If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free’. “But, you know there’s certain things that, in the arts, if you’re flipping on your TV and there’s Annie Hall you just stay with it? And if I’m flipping on the radio and I hear ‘Roxannne’, I’m gonna stay with it.”
That same essence permeates through everything Short has done: an easy appeal that renders the skip button obsolete. With simple charm, swooning charisma, and cracking lines, Short is the open candy jar of comedy. Below, you can find the tunes that inspire this easy grace.
Martin Short’s favourite songs:
- The Beatles – ‘Ticket to Ride’
- Frank Sinatra – ‘Fly Me To The Moon’
- Sting – ‘If You Love Someone, Set Them Free’
- Joni Mitchell – ‘For Free’
- Peter Gabriel – ‘Don’t Give Up’
