Time to press "Restart"
Guilt doesn't seem like a promising direction. Let's try something else entirely:
Video posted by omarov
No, no, NO, they can't stop there! You can't have Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers not dance! (Go ahead, go full screen for it, you know you want to.)
Video posted by UberDurable
That was "Pick Yourself Up," music by Jerome Kern and lyrics by Dorothy Fields, and it was written for the 1936 movie these clips came from, Swing Time. It's been covered and recovered, and was (almost) quoted by Barack Obama in his first Inaugural Address.
*** We've run across Dorothy Fields before, but I hadn't mentioned that her father, Lew Fields (born Moses Schoenfeld), started out in theater as half of Weber and Fields--one of the most popular comedy teams in vaudeville--and then became a successful theater producer. Despite this show business background, Dorothy did anything but coast--even though a female lyricist and librettist was a rarity in her day (she was the only woman to be named to the Songwriters Hall of Fame in its first elections), she wrote more than 400 songs and worked on 15 musicals and at least 26 movies over the course of over 50 years.
If you think Dorothy Fields 400 songs are impressive--and they are--what are we to make of the over 700 songs for which Jerome Kern (and yes, he was Jewish) wrote the music? And his output was not just enormous, it was also influential, popular, and long-lasting--"Look For the Silver Lining," "Old Man River," "Bill," "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," "I Won't Dance," "A Fine Romance," "I'm Old Fashioned," "The Last Time I Saw Paris," and so many more. Along the way he picked up two Oscars for Best Original Song (and another five nominations), and with Oscar Hammerstein II pioneered the book musical with Show Boat--triply impressive considering he began writing in the operetta era and was previously credited with bridging the gap between that style and the American vernacular in words, plots, and melodies.
* * * * *
Have I whetted your appetite for dance? Try this:
(As I told my brother, who brought this gem to my attention, my mother is by far the more likely of the two of us to emulate that!)
Video posted by omarov
No, no, NO, they can't stop there! You can't have Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers not dance! (Go ahead, go full screen for it, you know you want to.)
Video posted by UberDurable
That was "Pick Yourself Up," music by Jerome Kern and lyrics by Dorothy Fields, and it was written for the 1936 movie these clips came from, Swing Time. It's been covered and recovered, and was (almost) quoted by Barack Obama in his first Inaugural Address.
If you think Dorothy Fields 400 songs are impressive--and they are--what are we to make of the over 700 songs for which Jerome Kern (and yes, he was Jewish) wrote the music? And his output was not just enormous, it was also influential, popular, and long-lasting--"Look For the Silver Lining," "Old Man River," "Bill," "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," "I Won't Dance," "A Fine Romance," "I'm Old Fashioned," "The Last Time I Saw Paris," and so many more. Along the way he picked up two Oscars for Best Original Song (and another five nominations), and with Oscar Hammerstein II pioneered the book musical with Show Boat--triply impressive considering he began writing in the operetta era and was previously credited with bridging the gap between that style and the American vernacular in words, plots, and melodies.
Have I whetted your appetite for dance? Try this:
my mom has really enjoyed being quarantined with me since classes went online pic.twitter.com/R6N8hYCSvL
— Liz🍦 (@annielizzz) March 21, 2020
(As I told my brother, who brought this gem to my attention, my mother is by far the more likely of the two of us to emulate that!)
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