Cotolo Chronicles

Deconstructing the program
In response to inquiries, here is the next in a series of annotations relating to our broadcast/podcast.
Now a part of the program's lexicon, The Third Man Theme is from the original Carol Reed movie of the same name, released in 1949. Composer Anton Karas, a zither player, performed in a beer garden when Reed asked Karas to score and perform for the film's sountrack. Karas agreed, though he had no experience beyond playing in beer and wine gardens. The zither was a new sound for English and American audiences, but it expressed perfectly the atmosphere for the film, which was the story of a stranger in a strange land. Karas borrowed the theme's melody from a zither-practice book. The theme is one of the few standards no one ever attempted to write lyrics for, until now.

The Third Man
(music by Anton Karas, lyrics by Frank Cotolo)

Look around and you may see,
One and two and maybe three,
Do you think you see the accurate amount?
Should you question how you count?

One and one can equal two,
If that's exactly what you view,
But one and two to me,
Don't always have to equal three.

If you look under a rock,
Mysteries you will unlock,
Things you never knew, you find you shouldn't know,
Suddenly they start to show.
Then, when you feel that you've seen everything you can,
You look again, you count the first,
The second and the Third Man