"Gee, Officer Krupke" is a comedy number from the 1957 musical West Side Story. The song was composed by Stephen Sondheim (lyrics) and Leonard Bernstein (music), and was featured in the Broadway musical and subsequent 1961 and 2021 films.
Music
The song is sung by members of the street gang the Jets, who poke fun at the gruff Police Sergeant Krupke by singing about the societal forces that led them to join a gang. Following a theme used throughout the musical, the song begins with a tritone on the word Dear, held longer to signify its importance. Lyrically, the song features four seven-line verses, each filled with puns and wordplay. Each verse culminates with an interjection (e.g., "Golly Moses", "Leapin' lizards"), followed by the final line.
The tune was originally composed for an unused song for the Venice scene in Candide where the lyrics, by John Latouche, ended with the line, "Where does it get you in the end?"
Censorship
The last line of the song (performed as a "Shave and a Haircut" fanfare) is "Gee, Officer Krupke – Krup you!" Lyricist Stephen Sondheim originally wanted to break a then-existing Broadway taboo by ending the song with "Gee, Officer Krupke – fuck you!", but Columbia Records, which owned the rights to the cast album, told Sondheim that the album could then not be shipped to other states without violating the obscenity laws of the era. Accordingly, Sondheim changed the ending of the song to "Krup you", and later told an interviewer that the new line was the best in the whole musical.
Other versions
Stage play vs. 1961 film
In the original Broadway version, the song appears in the second act, but in the 1961 film version the song was moved to Act One, performed by the Jets (with Riff singing lead) prior to their imminent rumble with the Sharks. For the film's release, "Krupke" was switched with "Cool" (which was originally performed in the play's first act) on a request from Sondheim, who disliked the sequence of the songs in the play, feeling it was unfitting to watch a street gang perform a comedy number right after having seen both gang leaders get killed in the rumble.
Additionally, two stanzas in the film version had their words censored:
| 1957 Broadway | 1961 film |
|---|---|
|
My father is a bastard, |
My Daddy beats my Mommy, |
Stage play vs. 2021 film
In the 2021 film version, the song—using the lyrics from the 1957 Broadway version—is again moved to the first half, performed prior to the rumble, with "Cool" moved to after "One Hand, One Heart". Additionally, instead of in the streets, the song takes place in the 21st Precinct of the New York City Police Department.
In popular culture
The eighth episode of season seven of Curb Your Enthusiasm is entitled "Officer Krupke". The episode features a police officer whose name is Krupke, to whom Larry David has to describe the relevance of the name in West Side Story, since Krupke has never seen it. At several points, David sings the song, and ultimately is overheard singing the finale by children, who think he has said "Fuck you". "Gee, Officer Krupke" is also used as the end credits song in that episode.
In the second episode of season 4 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Midge (Rachel Brosnahan) describes a police officer who arrested her based on a misunderstanding as "Officer fucking Krupke".
In the fourth season episode of The West Wing, titled "Election Night," White House staffer Charlie Young is asked by a student he's mentoring to help another student out of a legal bind; Charlie brushes off the request by stating, "I'm not Officer Krupke. I have a job." Later in the conversation, the student retorts, "Who's Officer Cupcake?"
In the thirty-sixth season episode of The Simpsons, titled Women in Shorts, the grocery store clerks perform a musical number parodying of Gee, Officer Krupke when they remind Homer of all the embarrassing products Marge has bought for him in the past after he attempts to avoid searching for the tampons she asks him to find.
References
- "Track by Track – OCR: Track 13: 'Gee, Officer Krupke!'" by S. Woody White, sondheim.com
- Kerry Auer Fergus (May 17, 2017). "West Side Story: The Tritone and the 7th". Archived from the original on September 27, 2020. Retrieved March 11, 2018.
- Jaffee Nagel, Julie (2010). "Psychoanalytic and Musical Ambiguity: The Tritone in Gee, Officer Krupke". Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. 58 (1): 9–25. doi:10.1177/0003065109360555. PMID 20234007.
- Stephen Sondheim (2012). West Side Story (1961 film) (commentary track). MGM Home Video.
- "Candide" by Michael H. Hutchins, sondheimguide.com
- Chirico, Rob (July 5, 2016). ""Krup You!" No More: How Broadway Learned to Swear". Slate. Retrieved July 13, 2022.
- "Look, He Made A Hat: Sondheim Talks Sondheim", NPR, October 28, 2010
- Bouzereau, Laurent (2021). West Side Story the Making of the Steven Spielberg Film. ISBN 9781419750632.
- "S04e02 – Billy Jones and the Orgy Lamps – the Marvelous MRS. Maisel Transcripts – TVT".
- "Browse Transcripts - The West Wing, Election Night".
| Arthur Laurents, Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim's West Side Story (1957) | |||||
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