'Danced in My Scanties, Three Bucks a Night Was the Pay'

I know you think it's too long, Melinda, but I hope you haven't entirely ruled out the tune "I'm Still Here" for your live singing performance Wednesday night. Echoing Woman Up themes we are championing almost 40 years later, the classic Stephen Sondheim ballad comes from the Tony Award-winning Broadway show "Follies" (originally titled "The Girls Upstairs"). The musical story is about former showgirls from a Ziegfeld Follies-style floor show, huge between the World Wars, who meet again at a reunion years later as their palatial theater is due to be torn down in service to progress.

The song was made famous by Yvonne de Carlo in 1971 and, in my favorite version, reprised in 1990 by Shirley MacLaine channeling Debbie Reynolds in the film "Postcards From the Edge." The lyrics of feisty spunkiness and drive seem fitting for a veteran newspaperwoman at the threshold of journalism for the future: "I've stuffed the dailies in my shoes, Strummed ukuleles, sung the blues, Seen all my dreams disappear but I'm here. ... I got through all of last year, and I'm here, Lord knows, at least I was there, and I'm here."

I know it must be tempting as our girl group's Supremes leader to sing a Diana Ross-like version of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" for Politics Daily's revue debut at Karaoke in the Capital (a charity event, the proceeds of which will provide musical instruments to under-resourced schools). But before you completely rule out the Sondheim paean to consistency, please consider the sweet satisfaction of the words, "Good times and bum times, I've seen 'em all and, my dear, I'm still here."