Ninety years ago today, a song was copyrighted that would appear in a movie the following month. You might think a song from 1936 would be about as relevant today as an Alf Landon campaign button (he was that year’s Republican nominee for President). But the song isn’t a musty, flowery ballad, but a song you probably know and love – “The Way You Look Tonight,” which Fred Astaire performed in the 1936 film Swing Time.
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The song ranks with “Over the Rainbow” from the 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz as one of the most famous and beloved songs from that decade. It was composed by Jerome Kern, with lyrics by Dorothy Fields. In Max Wilk’s 1997 book They’re Playing Our Song: Conversations with America’s Classic Songwriters, Fields was quoted as saying: “The first time Jerry [Kern] played that melody for me I went out and started to cry. The release absolutely killed me. I couldn’t stop, it was so beautiful.”
In Swing Time, Astaire sang “The Way You Look Tonight” to his co-star Ginger Rogers while she washed her hair in an adjacent room. Astaire recorded “The Way You Look Tonight” in Los Angeles on July 26, 1936. His version was a big hit that year, as were cover versions by bandleader Guy Lombardo and jazz pianist Teddy Wilson (featuring a lead vocal by a 21-year old Billie Holiday).
On March 11, 1937, “The Way You Look Tonight” (originally stylized “The Way You Look To-night”) won the Academy Award for best original song. Fields was the first woman to win in that category, which was then in its third year. Moreover, she was the only woman to win in that category until 1969, when Marilyn Bergman was honored for co-writing “The Windmills of Your Mind” from The Thomas Crown Affair with her husband and lyric-writing partner Alan Bergman and composer Michel Legrand.
Astaire’s recording of the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998. In 2004, the song was ranked No. 43 on the AFI’s “100 Years…100 Songs” list. (Too low, but that’s OK.)
Benny Goodman & His Orchestra revived the song in 1942, with a lead vocal by a 22-year old Peggy Lee.
The Lettermen took the song to No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1961, the song’s highest placement in the Hot 100 era (which began in 1958). The vocal trio’s version received a Grammy nod for best pop performance by a duo or group with vocal. It was featured on their album A Song for Young Love, which reached No. 6 on the Billboard 200 in April 1962.
The song had a major revival around the turn of the century. In 1997, Tony Bennett’s version was featured prominently in the hit film My Best Friend’s Wedding. In 1998, Neil Diamond included it on his album The Movie Album: As Time Goes By. In 1999, Bryan Ferry included it on his album As Time Goes By. In 2002, Rod Stewart included the song on his first album of standards, It Had To Be You: The Great American Songbook. (The Diamond, Ferry and Stewart albums all received Grammy nods for best traditional pop vocal album.) In 2003, Michael Bublé included the song on his major-label debut album, Michael Bublé. The following year, Phil Collins chose the song to close his double-disk album Love Songs: A Compilation….Old and New.
“The Way You Look Tonight” is probably most closely identified with Bennett. The legendary singer recorded the song on his album Long Ago and Far Away in 1958, and then again with the Ralph Sharon Trio for My Best Friend’s Wedding. Bennett also recorded two duet versions of the song: the first with Faith Hill on his Billboard 200-topping Duets II (2011); the second with Mexican singer Thalía for his album Viva Duets (2012). Bennett recorded yet another version on which he was accompanied only by pianist Bill Charlap for The Silver Lining: The Songs of Jerome Kern (2015). (Duets II and The Silver Lining: The Songs of Jerome Kern both won Grammys for best traditional pop vocal album.)
In 1963, Ella Fitzgerald recorded the song for Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Jerome Kern Song Book, the seventh installment in her celebrated Song Book series (with Nelson Riddle arranging). Frank Sinatra recorded it in 1964, also working with Riddle and his orchestra, on his album Days of Wine and Roses, Moon River, and Other Academy Award Winners, which, despite that wordy title, made the top 10 on the Billboard 200 in May 1964.
Olivia Newton-John included it on Warm and Tender, her 1989 album of lullabies and standards. The album made the Billboard 200. Other artists who have included the song on Billboard 200-charting albums include The Four Lads, Ray Conniff, Perry Como, Ferrante & Teicher, Peter Nero, Andy Williams, Roger Williams, Connie Francis, Erroll Garner, The Tymes, Chad & Jeremy, Henry Mancini, Dionne Warwick, Mantovani and Johnny Mathis.
The song was prominently featured in the 1974 film classic Chinatown; the 1991 remake of Father of the Bride (as sung by Steve Tyrell, who would later win a Grammy for producing one of Stewart’s Great American Songbook albums); the 1999 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine series finale; and the 2010 film Valentine’s Day (as sung by Maroon 5). Friends fans will remember the 2000 episode where Bennett’s version of the song appeared on a mixtape that Chandler gave to Monica. She swooned, until the tape included a personal message to Chandler from his ex-girlfriend Janice, and it became apparent that Chandler had regifted a mixtape that Janice had made for him.
Of the thousands of love songs that have been written and recorded over the past nine decades, why has “The Way You Look Tonight” transcended time? Why does it still make fans swoon all these years later?
Lyricist Fields was quite right. The song has a gorgeous melody. And her lyrics are equally moving: “Yes, you’re lovely, with your smile so warm/ And your cheeks so soft/ There is nothing for me but to love you.”
The song has a bittersweet tone, but you quickly come to realize that it’s not coming from a place of sadness but one of deep contentment. The singer is banking a memory of this happy time to draw on in the future when things may not be as good. The opening lines: “Someday, when I’m awfully low/ When the world is cold/ I will feel a glow just thinking of you/ And the way you look tonight.”
Fields’ lyrics are also wonderful, such as this clever internal rhyme of “change” and “arrange”: “Lovely … Never, never change/Keep that breathless charm/Won’t you please arrange it? ’cause I love you.”
Of course, that’s a fantasy. For better and for worse, people always change. Marilyn and Alan Bergman, who made a career of writing songs with the elegance and sophistication of “The Way You Look Tonight,” almost seemed to comment on this aspect of the lyric in what may be their finest song, 1982’s Oscar-nominated “How Do You Keep the Music Playing?”: “And since we know we’re always changing/ How can it be the same?”
Swing Time featured two other well-known Kern-Fields songs, “Pick Yourself Up (A Sarcastic Love Song)” and “A Fine Romance.” Kern died in 1945 at age 60 of a cerebral hemorrhage. He was in the inaugural class of inductees into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970. He received a trustees award from the Recording Academy in 1987.
Fields was inducted into the SHOF in 1971. She died in 1974 at age 69.
Swing Time was the sixth (of 10) films that Astaire and Rogers made together, a collaboration which inspired the famous quip, “Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels.” Former Texas Governor Ann Richards popularized the quote during her keynote address at the 1988 Democratic National Convention, though it originally appeared in a 1982 “Frank and Ernest” cartoon by Bob Thaves.
Swing Time was the second Astaire-Rogers film to spawn an Oscar-winning song. Their 1934 film The Gay Divorcee yielded the first best song winner, “The Continental.” Their films delivered five other Oscar-nominated songs: “The Carioca” (from Flying Down to Rio), “Lovely to Look At” (from Roberta), “Cheek to Cheek” (From Top Hat), “They Can’t Take That Away From Me” (from Shall We Dance) and “Change Partners” (from Carefree).
Astaire had such a strong identity as a film star and dancer that he is not always included in discussions of top singers. But he introduced or popularized many classic songs, including (in addition to those named above) “Fascinating Rhythm” (1926, with his sister Adele Astaire), “Night and Day,” “Top Hat, White Tie and Tails,” “Let’s Face the Music and Dance,” “Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off,” “They All Laughed” and “Nice Work If You Can Get It.”
Astaire was in the inaugural class of Kennedy Center Honors honorees in 1978 (Rogers followed in 1992). He died in 1987 at age 88, and received a posthumous lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy in 1989.
An appreciation of Astaire which appeared in that year’s Grammy program book concluded with a quote from Irving Berlin: “His heart was in a song before his feet took over.”
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