Cool (West Side Story song) Cool (West Side Story song) "Cool" is a song from the musical "West Side Story". Leonard Bernstein composed the music and Stephen Sondheim wrote the lyrics. This song is known for its fugal treatment of a jazz figure, described by one writer as "possibly the most complex instrumental music heard on Broadway to date". In 2011, actor Harry Shum Jr. performed the song, as his character Mike Chang from TV series "Glee", in the third episode of season 3, "Asian F" (aired on October 4). An episode of "Animaniacs" features a parody version as "Coo Bird" sung by Bobby of
Stephen Sondheim not lend itself to musicalization, they began writing the musical version. The project had many problems, Rodgers' alcoholism among them; Sondheim, calling it the one project he regretted, then decided to work only when he could write both music and lyrics. He asked author and playwright James Goldman to join him as bookwriter for a new musical. Inspired by a "New York Times" article about a gathering of former Ziegfeld Follies showgirls, it was entitled "The Girl Upstairs" (and would later become "Follies"). In 1966, Sondheim semi-anonymously provided lyrics for "The Boy From...," a parody of "The Girl from Ipanema"