Doubts Raised to Counterintuitive Approach to Subway Trash

By SARAH MASLIN NIR

On Thursday night, at her first professional hometown performance since she sang on stoops in Brooklyn neighborhoods like East Flatbush, where she lived as a teenager, Barbra Streisand riffed on her roots.

Ms. Streisand was the second singer to perform at the new Barclays Center, and her audience was far different from the people who had filled the arena for Jay-Z's concerts. Her fans tended to be a bit older and many had gone dressed in their Sunday best. One security guard was heard to remark that Ms. Streisand's show was a “much milder scene.”

During a nearly three-hour show, Ms. Streisand, 70, swapped in decidedly local images and phrases into several of her musical standards.

In “As if We Never Said Goodbye” from the musical stage show “Sunset Boulevard,” the show's opener, for example, she crooned about her love of Nova lox and knishes, and even slipped in a nod to Erasmus Hall High, the school she attended. But it was after intermission inside the 19,000-person-capacity arena that she really offered an ode to the borough.

To the tune of “You're the Top” from “Anything Goes,” Ms. Streisand offered her tribute to Brooklyn.

(We missed the first few lines - we were enjoying the concert! - but Jay-Z's rapping skills were definitely commended. As for the rest, here it is as best we heard it.)

You're the art, in an old museum,
You're the taste of a cold egg cream.
You're a Brooklyn Net on a private, jet nonstop!
‘Cause, baby, there's no maybe, you're the top.

You're the town that begat Judge Judy
- and of course, yours truly.
You are Danny Kaye and Houdini and Mae West
You are crackerjack like the great Koufax,
Baby, you're the best!
You are the shine on Liz Taylor's rings,
You're the crown on the Loew's Kings
You're a Brooklyn Height and an all-night cof fee shop,
Listen, baby, there's no maybe, you're the top!

You're the top, you're the Brooklyn trolley,
You're the top - oh my favorite! - you are a hot bialy,
You talk Brooklynese, saying “dese” and “dems” and “dose”
You're a Rolls-Royce dealer, you're the Wonder Wheel, you're vintage clothes!
You are the top,
Brighton Beach Boardwalker,
You're the top,
You are a real straight-talker
And you know it's true, it's an accent you can't drop!

Yeah, Brooklyn, you're good lookin'
I smell Chinese food a-cookin'
I'm so glad I took this booking!
‘Cause, you're the top!

This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: October 12, 2012

An earlier version of this post misstated the origin of the song "As if We Never Said Goodbye." It was from the musical stage show "Sunset Boulevard," not the film, which was not a musical.