Catherine Zeta-Jones, Cell Block Tango | Bangerz N Bopz 🔥

In the 28^th edition of Bangerz N Bopz 🔥 (2024), we highlight “Cell Block Tango” performed by Catherine Zeta-Jones and the cast of Chicago (the motion picture).

Bring on the bold, fierce songs! Bangerz N Bopz 🔥 serves up background info and insight into songs of various styles, especially songs that raise eyebrows and/or stir the pot.  Featured records can be classic or brand new. In the 28^th edition of Bangerz N Bopz 🔥 (2024), we break down “Cell Block Tango” performed by Catherine Zeta-Jones and the cast of Chicago (the motion picture). 

“Pop / Six / Squish / Uh-uh / Cicero / Lipschitz.” And so, begins one of the best musical numbers of them all, “Cell Block Tango”.  Following the first iteration of those memorable, recurrent lyrics from the seven-minute-plus, fourth track from the Chicago motion picture soundtrack, the emcee introduces the performers: “And now, the six merry murderesses of the Cook County Jail in their rendition of the Cell Block Tango.” Performing the beloved Fred Ebb and John Kander-penned gem are Academy Award winning actress Catherine Zeta-Jones, Susan Misner, Deidre Goodwin, Denise Faye, Ekaterina Chtchelkanova, Mya Harrison, and Taye Diggs.

The excerpted lyrics correspond to why the murderesses murdered. The commonality between them all is the infectious chorus:

“He had it coming

He had it coming

He only had himself to blame

If you’d have been there

If you’d have seen it

I betcha you would have done the same.”

Throughout the course of this lengthy murder ballad, the women explain what happened in detail.  Liz (Susan Misner), for example, got sick of her husband popping his gum: “So, I took the shotgun off the wall, and I fired two warning shots… into his head.” Damn! Annie (Denise Faye) found out Ezekiel wasn’t single: “He had six wives.  One of those Mormons… So that night when he came home from work, I fixed him his drink, as usual. You know some guys just can’t hold their arsenic.”  It doesn’t stop there.  June’s (Deidre Goodwin) husband ran into her knife. Katalin Helinszki nicknamed Hunyak (Ekaterina Chtchelkanova) is innocent, but they didn’t understand her (she speaks Hungarian). Velma Kelly (Zeta-Jones) kills her sister and husband for cheating on her. As for Mona (Mya Harrison), of her cheating husband, Al Lipschitz, “He saw himself as alive… and I saw him dead.” “Cell Block Tango” is, and will forever be, one of the great tour de forces from a musical. #ICONIC!

Various Artists // Chicago (Music from the Miramax Motion Picture) // Sony Music Entertainment Inc. // 2002

Catherine Zeta-Jones, Cell Block Tango: Bangerz N Bopz 🔥 No. 28 (2024) [📷: Brent Faulkner / The Musical Hype; Sony Music Entertainment Inc.; cottonbro studio, Harry Shelton, Kool Shooters, Lucas Pazeta, Mavluda Tashbaeva, Teddy Yang, Wesley Souza from Pexels]