Alan Cumming's Blue Car CD Features Songs from Lauper, Cabaret, Hedwig & More

I Bought a Blue Car Today, the debut solo album from stage star Alan Cumming, will be released on Tuesday, September 22 on Yellow Sound Label. The Tony-winning actor, who will return to Broadway in 2010 in SPIDER-MAN: Turn Off the Dark, performed a concert version of the material on the album at London’s Vaudeville Theatre in early September.

Led by musical director Lance Horne, Cumming explores a variety of musical styles on the album, with material range from songs by artists like Cyndi Lauper, Dory Previn, John Bucchino and Jimmy Webb to theatrical gems (“Mein Herr” from Cabaret, the show that earned Cumming a Best Actor Tony; “Where I Want to Be” from Chess; “What More Can I Say?” from Falsettos; “Wig in a Box/Wicked Little Town” from Hedwig and the Angry Inch) and more.

“The album title comes from the naturalization test I took to become a citizen of the U S of A,” says Cumming. “In the test, there is a bit where the man says a sentence and you have to write it down to prove your prowess in English. My sentence was ‘I bought a blue car today,’ which initially I thought was really sweet and childlike, but on closer examination I realized that it’s all about consumerism and gas guzzling, which rather brilliantly encapsulates America's financial and energy crises in one fell swoop. [The album is] made up of songs and stories about my ten years living in the states culminating in my becoming a citizen.”

Cumming will play the Green Goblin, the villain of SPIDER-MAN: Turn Off the Dark when it starts performances at the Hilton Theatre in early 2010. In addition to Cabaret, he has appeared on Broadway in Threepenny Opera and Design for Living and off-Broadway in The Seagull. His many London stage credits include Bent and the title role in Hamlet.

A complete track listing for I Bought a Blue Car Today (with songwriters indicated) follows:

1. “Shine” - Cyndi Lauper
2. “Dance and Dance and Smile and Smile” - Dory Previn
3. “That's Life” - Dean Kay & Kelly Gordon
4. “Wig in a Box/Wicked Little Town” - Stephen Trask
5. “Don't Tell Me” - Lance Horne
6. “Here You Come Again/My Interpretation” - Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil, Mika, Jodie Marr & Richie Supa
7. “Next to Me” - Lance Horne & Alan Cumming
8. “Unexpressed” - John Bucchino
9. “Where I Want to Be” - Bjorn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, Tim Rice
10. “Thinking of You” - Victoria Wood
11. “What More Can I Say" - William Finn
12. "Mein Herr” - John Kander/Fred Ebb
13. “All I Know” - Jimmy Webb