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Nope, Sinatra wasn’t the first. It was Fred Astaire who was the first to sing “The Way You Look Tonight.” This clip is from the 1936 movie Swing Time. It always sounds a bit strange to here an early version of a song that's so identified with another singer.

The song was between collaboration of Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields (he music, she lyrics). Personally, I think Fields is one of the great underrated lyricists. Consider how touching, yet simple, these words are. Read them as if you’ve never read them before:

Some day, 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.

Perfect. Just perfect. The “awfully” is especially brilliant. I can’t imagine how Fields thought of that, yet I can’t imagine the song without it.

He’s an odd bit of trivia: Before working with Fields one of Kerns’ earliest collaborators was the great P.G. Wodehouse. (More trivia. That shampoo in Ginger Rogers’ hair? Whipped cream.)

The thing about writing lyrics is that it's hard, and writing timeless lyrics is damn near impossible. It seems like every thought has been captured, every feeling has been expressed and every rhyme has been made. But then, suddenly, you come across words that make the world young again:

Lovely ... Never, ever change.
Keep that breathless charm.
Won't you please arrange it?
'Cause I love you ... Just the way you look tonight.

Posted by edelfenbein at December 21, 2007 9:25 PM