That Stephen Colbert Farewell Songs album we suggested a few weeks back is looking more and more marvelous.
During his seventh and final visit to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert Tuesday night, Billy Crystal paid tribute to the exiting late-night host with a rewrite of the Frank Sinatra standard, “In the Wee Small Hours.”
Motivated by some liquid courage—Colbert had arranged for them to be served some clearly outstanding Old Fashioneds there at the desk—Crystal fished a microphone out from behind the guest chair and took to the stage.
Adding emotional weight to the moment, The Ed Sullivan Theater’s stage has special meaning for Crystal, as 50-plus years ago he made made his network TV debut there, in the first episode of the ABC variety program Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell.
“Everything started here…,” Crystal said as he searched for the approximate mark where he made said debut. “So to finish my appearances on this wonderful show, here on the spot where I started, really, in television, means a lot to me.”
Crystal’s rendition of the song was largely rewritten for the occasion, opening with: “In the wee small hours of the morning… when the whole wide world is just a mess… we’ll lie awake and think about Colbert… and wonder ‘What the [bleep] is with CBS?
“When we look in vain to find The Late Show… for our nightly laugh to break the fall,” the serenade continued. “When we need a joke to just keep going… that’s the time we’ll miss him… most of all.”
Watch Crystal’s full tribute to Colbert below:
Crystal is the latest in a growing line of Late Show guests who have honored Colbert as The Late Show‘s May 21 series finale draws closer. Two weeks ago, Nathan Lane offered a tinkered take on “Laughing Matters” (from the 1996 Off-Broadway revue When Pigs Fly). Not long before that, Jimmy Fallon serenaded Colbert with a rendition of My Way
In early March, John Lithgow read a poem he wrote, titled “The Mighty Colbert,” which doubled as both tribute and elegy for the host. Similarly, at Colbert’s request, Edward Norton read a four-minute excerpt from “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” a poem by their shared favorite, Walt Whitman. And the night before Lane’s performance, John Mulaney gifted the soon-to-be-unemployed Colbert with a “$750 check.
