"Our Love is Here to Stay"

Once more, with something fancy added!

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Today I’m revisiting a Sometimes a Song from two years back, by the great George & Ira Gershwin — because it so perfectly fits our Word of the Week, fancy. But read to the end for something “extra fancy” that didn’t make it to my original post! And so …

On July 12, 1937, a year which marked the coronation of George VI of England, the Hindenburg disaster, and the disappearance of Amelia Earhart, a popular American composer’s photo made the front page of The New York Times and newspapers all over the US. Soon the sad news would be known around the world that George Gershwin had died of a brain tumor. Gershwin was 38 years old and at the peak of his career.

By the mid-1920’s Gershwin’s music had already established his reputation in the US abroad. The musical hits came fast and furious, with the amazing “Rhapsody in Blue” taking the musical scene by storm in 1924, premiered with Gershwin’s full orchestration by the Paul Whiteman band. A decade after composing “Rhapsody in Blue,” Gershwin — not content to rest on his laurels — traveled to Paris in the hope of improving his skills under the direction of any one of the great pianists and composers of his day. But although he was gladly received by all of those he sought out, each one turned him down, fearful of interfering with or distracting him from his gift, rather than improve his work. Among those whom Gershwin sought out was Maurice Ravel, who reportedly said to him, “Why become a second-rate Ravel, when you are already a first-rate Gershwin?” It seems that Ravel had heard and greatly admired jazz music, in general, and Gershwin’s work, in particular.

Although George Gershwin did not find — and perhaps did not need, if we accept the assessment of the many composers he visited and during his stay in France — a musical mentor, he did make a very serious study of the French composers. While he was in France, he composed his Concerto in F and his American in Paris purposely to reflect what he had learned from studying the works of Debussy. American in Paris premiered to mixed reviews at Carnegie Hall shortly after Gershwin returned from Europe, but despite the niggling of critics the piece quickly took its place in the American musical canon. Fifteen years later, Gene Kelly build a ballet centerpiece around that work in a film production of the same name. Kelly drew on his gifts as a trained ballet dancer and choreographer to bring Gershwin’s ballet inspired work to the big screen, in a film which was a masterpiece in its own right.

Working with his brother, Ira, and his other lyricist partner, Buddy DeSilva, Gershwin spent the 1920’s and 1930’s writing hit after hit for Broadway shows and in Hollywood, where in 1936 he composed the beautiful music and score for the film, Shall We Dance (RKO), a huge success for the studio and for the incomparable dance team of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. I’m sure that everyone who was anyone in entertainment expected Gershwin to continue composing music for a long lifetime. But that was not to be. In 1937, George Gershwin was still in Hollywood, working on the score of a Samuel Goldwyn film called The Goldwyn Follies, which was released in 1938. Our Sometimes a Song for today is one he wrote for that film, the last song that George Gershwin would ever compose. It’s a love song, yes, and brilliantly sweet, but with a lyric composed his brother Ira, who, with the help of Buddy DeSilva, finished the song after George’s death. And that’s no doubt why the lyric is not only sweet, but wistful, too, placing love in a category that transcends even the most apparently permanent features of our world. “Our Love Is Here to Stay” is a song for its time, a song of love from brother to brother, and a song for the ages.

Verse
… The more I read the papers
The less I comprehend
The world with all its capers
And how it all will end.
… Nothing seems to be lasting
But that isn't our affair.
We've got something permanent.
I mean in the way we care.

… It's very clear,
Our love is here to stay.
Not for a year,
But ever and a day.
The radio and the telephone
And the movies that we know
May just be passing fancies
And in time may go.

… But, oh my dear,
Our love is here to stay.
Together we're going a long, long way.
… In time the Rockies may crumble.
Gibraltar may tumble.
They're only made of clay,
But our love is here to stay.

It's very clear,
Our love is here to stay,
… Not for a year
But ever and a day.
The radio and the telephone
And the movies that we know
May just be passing fancies
And in time may go.

… But, oh my dear,
Our love is here to stay.
Together we're going a long, long way.
… In time the Rockies may crumble.
Gibraltar may tumble.
They're only made of clay,
But our love is here to stay.

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There are so many wonderful versions of “Our Love Is Here to Stay,” all of them lovely in their way. But I chose the following one, a sweet rendition by Dawn Harkins, because unlike almost all of the other available recordings, hers includes the verse. And I chose a swing version by Frank Sinatra because a pairing of The Voice with any Gershwin tune is aways grand. I hope you will enjoy both versions.

And last but not least by far, here’s George Gershwin’s utterly fabulous “Rhapsody in Blue,” performed by by the great Leonard Bernstein with the New York Philharmonic in 1976.

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Word & Song is an online magazine devoted to reclaiming the good, the beautiful, and the true. We publish six essays each week, on words, classic hymn, poems, films, and popular songs, as well a weekly podcast, alternately Poetry Aloud or Anthony Esolen Speaks. To support this project, please join us as a free or paid subscriber.