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THE GREAT AMERICAN SONGBOOK

GEORGE GERSHWIN

GIRL CRAZY

This musical produced three songs that achieved immortality. I covered one of them last week, and tonight I will cover another.

GEORGE GERSHWIN: “I GOT RHYTHM”

George wrote this song in D-flat (5 flats) using the notes of the pentatonic scale, and he syncopated the phrases so that the tune lies just behind the pulse. It’s a 34 bar classic in AABA format.

Ira found it difficult to write lyrics for it, and he spent two weeks spinning his wheels. Ira: The insistence on rhyming “seemed at best to give a pleasant and Mother Goose quality to a tune which should throw its weight around more.” He gave up rhyming the lyrics. “This approach felt stronger, and I finally arrived at the present refrain, with only ‘more-door’ and ‘mind him-find him’ the rhymes.” The approach “was a bit daring for me who usually depended on rhyme insurance.” It was tempting for Ira to take the phrase “Who could ask for anything more?” and turn it into the title, but he decided that “somehow the first line of the refrain sounded more arresting and provocative.”

The songwriter’s art is not an easy one.

This is a restored film of George himself playing piano at the Manhattan Theater in August 1931.

George Gershwin: “I Got Rhythm”

It’s always interesting in a songwriting collaboration whether the lyrics are written first, the melody first, or both simultaneously.

I may be wrong about this, but I remember hearing that Jerome Kern wrote every note of showboat before Oscar Hammerstein wrote the lyrics.

However, in a Master Class by Richard Rogers, the Maestro indicated that Hammerstein gave him the lyrics and he derived the melody from the meaning of the words. He then used “It Might As Well Be Spring” to illustrate how he did it! I saw the film of the Master Class on late night TV many years ago, and I never forgot it.

Would you know if George and Ira always did it in this order (music first, then lyrics) or if they tried different ways of doing it? (I find it easier to set lyrics to an existing melody, but Richard Rogers impressed me so much with his method.)