TEA FOR TWO

TEA FOR TWO, composed by Vincent Youmans (September 27, 1898 - April 5, 1946) was an American popular composer and Broadway producer.

The song is in No No Nanette - a musical Broadway, becoming a jazz standard. The song is sung from the viewpoint of a lovestruck man, who plans the future with his new woman in mind.

Youmans was born in New York City and was a runner for a Wall Street brokerage firm. He was drafted to fight in World War I. He took an interest in the theatre when he produced troop shows for the Navy. After the war he was a Tin Pan Alley song plugger and a rehearsal pianist, and collaborated with lyricist Ira Gershwin on the score for Two Little Girls in Blue, which won wide acclaim. His next show, with lyrics by Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II, was Wildflower. His most enduring success, was No, No, Nanette, with lyrics by Irving Caesar.

After Oh Please, Hit the Deck, Rainbow and Take a Chance, his career faded, in part due to heavy drinking.

Youmans was painfully aware that many of his fellow songwriters ended up impoverished, and he was determined to avoid that fate. He spent a substantial amount of his songwriting royalties on life insurance policies, intending to collect on the insurance if his songwriting talents ever failed. Eventually, when Youmans decided to retire and collect his insurance, he learned that the insurance companies would not pay off unless Youmans was physically incapable of earning a living: as long as his songs were performed or published, Youmans would not be deemed incapacitated. Consequently, in the mid-1930s, Youmans ceased to work professionally. He continued to write songs but did not submit them for performance, choosing to accumulate them as unpublished manuscripts.

In his last years, after collecting most of his insurance money, Youmans longed for the limelight again. An attempted comeback with a ballet revue in 1943 was a commercial and artistic failure.

He died of tuberculosis in Denver, Colorado. At his death, Youmans left behind a large quantity of unpublished material.

(taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Youmans)

Here is the lyrics of TEA FOR TWO, written by Irving Caesar:

He: I'm discontented with homes that are rented so I have invented my own,
She: Darling this place is a lover's oasis where lights where we chase is unknown,
He: Far from the cry of the city where flowers pretty caress the stream,
Both: Cozy to hide in, to live side by side in, don't let it abide in my dream.

He: Picture you upon my knee, just tea for two, and two for tea.
Just me for you, and you for me alone.
She: Nobody near us, to see and to hear us, no friends or relations
On weekend vacations, we won't have it known, dear, that we own a telephone, dear.
He: They will brake (?) and you'll awake, and start to bake a sugar cake
For me to take for all the boys to see.
Both: We will raise a family, a boy for you and a girl for me,
Can't you see how happy we will be.