Fanny Brice Sings I'd Rather Be Blue

Barbra Streisand sang this song in the movie version of Funny Girl, which is loosely based on the early life of Fanny Brice. Here's Fanny singing the original version. The first photo is, of course, Streisand.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Fanny
• Brice
• Funny
• Girl
• Barbra
• Streisand

[BornToLate]

No question Barbra has one great clear singing voice. But Fanny gets more emotion in her songs. She also had more talent than Barbra. Her comedic gestures and eyes plus creating a total different persona with Snooks. Fanny can make you cry. Barbra can not.

[CraigSD]

If you've never seen Barbra in Yentl or Prince of Tides and she didn't make you cry, then I don't know what. Barbra's songs have ALWAYS been full of emotion. That's why she's the greatest singer in the last century. She can infuse a word with her voice that gives you chills, or wrap her voice around a phrase that hits it out of the ballpark and makes it all her own. I can't say enough about Barbra.

[bryangreenwood]

Without Fanny - Barbra wouldn't have had the damned song to sing in the first place. We're talking 50 years in developments in difference between styles and the technology that made the music, which had passed between the time Fanny did it and Barbra copied it. Don't get me wrong about Barbra. She's one of the most fantastic voices of the 20th century. But don't call Fanny crap. She was the original. Respect please.

[Lengo67]

@BornToLate I agree. Great comedy usually comes from people who have suffered great emotional pain, and Fanny Brice was no exception. Like Samuel Clemens, she wasn't appreciated until she turned on her persona, just as Samuel Clemens was lonely unless he turned on his Mark Twain persona. Fanny was the original. Barbra was a cookie cutter rendition. Both had lives of sorrow and suffering, but Fanny was the first and the better of the two.

[freshair3451]

@Swingsation65 Shut up...Love Barbra.

[monjiou1]

Barbara is OK, but Fanny was it for me ! And I liked Fanny before Barbara was on the scene at all. I did not need Barbara to introduce me to Fanny.

[storm915]

@bryangreenwood No one disagrees with this, she was a legend in her time! But Fanny's Son-In-Law picked Barbra to make Fanny's true worth come to life, to make sure her legend survived past her lifetime!

[storm915]

Fanny had a great voice and she was a super star in "her age", but it was Barbra who made her world famous in our time...and that is something every Fanny Brice fan needs to come to grips with.

[jimdivax]

times produce and make stars of the singers and singing-styles that most reflect them....f a mixture of etiquette and technology evolving constantly. It's why to today's youngsters Streisand herself sounds squeaky and outdated.

[CraigSD]

@Swingsation65 That's because no one knew who Fanny Brice was in the '60s and decades after (unless you are now in your 80s or 90s). There has to be a comparison to Barbra simply because Barbra played Fanny on stage and in the movies. Get it?

[RadBrittany]

0:40 is CREEPY! Isn't that creepy??

[TheMightyJeffers]

Thank You