"All the Things You Are"

Jerome Kern, Oscar Hammerstein

Can you imagine a Broadway show featuring a score by Jerome Kern and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein being a flop? The thought is preposterous. I can hardly imagine even using the words "Kern," "Hammerstein," and "flop" in the same sentence. But there you have it. This week’s Sometimes a Song premiered in not just a so-so show, but in a genuine no-show show. The opening night reviews for “Very Warm for May” were so bad that on the second night the theater held only twenty patrons. Sadly for Jerome Kern, the failed show would be his last on Broadway. But fortunately him and for Oscar Hammerstein, some songs from the score became very popular. The best of these, "All the Things You Are," reached the charts in that bench-mark year 1939 and, unlike the show it was written for, became a big hit. The song held its own in a field filled with great songs by the big bands of Glen Miller, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Woodie Herman, Tommy Dorsey, Artie Shaw, and by such singers as Judy Garland, Mildred Bailey, Bing Crosby, and the Andrews Sisters.

Of course, not every hit song becomes a standard — a song which 50 or more years after its release is still in the repertoire of most musicians and vocalists. But by 1964, twenty-five years after its release, “All the Things You Are” was chosen in a Saturday Review poll of American composers and songwriters as the "Best Song of All Time." If that sounds like high praise, it is. Jerome Kern’s melody is far from ordinary; in fact, the song is a small musical masterpiece.

Kern did not expect this tune to go far on the American music scene, because he thought that people would not understand the complexity of the piece or find it memorable or singable. Then to his amazement one day, he happened to hear a man on the street whistling his tune. Of the song’s lyric, Oscar Hammerstein said that he was always annoyed with himself for using the word, “divine,” in the song, that Kern also hated it, but that after much effort, he could find no more appropriate choice for the “ine” rhyme he needed on the ultimate line, “When all the things you are are mine.” But eighty-five years later, history has proven Oscar Hammerstein’s worth. And I’ll add that his lyrics are — well — divine.

You are the promised kiss of springtime
That makes the lonely winter seem long.
You are the breathless hush of evening
That trembles on the brink of a lovely song.
You are the angel glow that lights a star,
The dearest things I know are what you are.

Some day my happy arms will hold you,
And some day I'll know that moment divine,
When all the things you are, are mine!

In the history of American Song, Fred Astaire holds the title for introducing the greatest number of songs which would become standards. This distinction is due not so much to his voice -- which was in the "just okay" category -- but to his immense popularity over his long career. Composers fell over themselves for the chance to write songs expressly for him. But for making hit songs into standards -- “singers’ songs,” the ones that every singer loves to perform -- Frank Sinatra took the prize. His 1945 version of "All the Things You Are" is practically perfect. And yes there are many many beautiful recordings of this wonderful song. But today I give you Jerome Kern (the music), Oscar Hammerstein (the lyric) and Frank Sinatra (the voice), in “All the Things You Are.”