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.
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).
