Jimmy van Heusen has always been my favorite composer.
Personality, co-written by van Heusen and lyricist/poet Johnny Burke and introduced by Dorothy Lamour in one of the Hope/Crosby Road movies, proved a perfect vehicle for this parody. I recorded it in 1998 at the request of the then-fiancee of investment guru Myron Scholes, who had been a professor of finance at the University of Chicago before he learned that Wall Street would actually pay him for being smart. If I remember correctly, her name was Francine. (note: Memory failed; her name was Jan, I've since been told.) She'd seen an
article about me in the New York Times in which I'd mentioned that I had recently written a song about the Black/Scholes option pricing model. It was probably the first song ever written about the Black/Scholes option pricing model. She thought the song would make a nice wedding gift for a guy who had everything, including her. A few months later Scholes' hedge fund, Long Term Capital Management, blew up in public view, but I think Myron and Francine are still doing OK.)
