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The Year of Tony Bennett

An Appreciation of the Art and Music of Tony Bennett

April 6, 2014 By Suzanne 3 Comments

Song of the Day: Fun To Be Fooled

The song of the day for Sunday, April 6, 2014 is “Fun To Be Fooled.”

About This Song

“Fun To Be Fooled” was composed by Harold Arlen, with lyrics from Ira Gershwin and E.Y. “Yip” Harburg. The song was written for the 1934 Broadway musical revue Life Begins at 8:40, which featured Bert Lahr and Ray Bolger. This revue, which was very well-received, marked one of Arlen’s first opportunities on the larger Broadway scene after his time writing for The Cotton Club.

About This Version

Today I was checking the usage statistics for our sister site, The Interactive Tony Bennett Discography and noticed that some one had done a Google search for “Fun To Be Fooled,” which led me to revisit Tony Bennett’s 1960 album Tony Bennett Sings A String of Harold Arlen. I think it’s worth noting that the first album that Bennett made with just the music from a single composer was his album of Arlen music. Harold Arlen’s music has threaded through popular music from his earliest songs. Some years ago, the Library of Congress did a special birthday concert for Stephen Sondheim, the first part of which consisted of songs that he didn’t write, but wished he had. Almost all of them were Harold Arlen songs.

In typical Tony Bennett style, he not only sings the very popular and widely known songs, such as “Over the Rainbow” and “I’ve Got The World on a String.” but also brings us some wonderful Arlen songs that aren’t as well known. Today’s song, “Fun To Be Fooled,” is one of those songs. The song is a quite sweet love song. Note that in the middle of the song, there’s a reference to “old devil moon.” Yip Harburg would borrow that phrase as the title of a song written with Burton Lane for Finians’ Rainbow in 1947.

http://open.spotify.com/track/10e1opq0lzrR3K5SNOVJ09
“Fun To Be Fooled,” as well as Tony Bennett Sings A String of Harold Arlen, is available from iTunes.

Filed Under: Song of the Day Tagged With: E. Y. (Yip) Harburg, Harold Arlen, Ira Gershwin, Life Begins at 8:40, Tony Bennett Sings a String of Harold Arlen

Comments

  1. Steven Strauss says

    September 24, 2015 at 11:05 am

    Tony only uses the last two lines of the verse as an introduction. Beautifully so. Where can we find a version which employs the whole verse? I want to learn it.

    Reply
    • Suzanne says

      September 27, 2015 at 1:17 am

      Hi Steven,

      Thanks for your note.

      Bobby Short sings the full verse:
      https://open.spotify.com/track/565i0kwKYvys6dm780SkqL

      This is from a recording of the score:
      https://open.spotify.com/track/29Vr40L2YUfybk3f0p3dz5

      It’s a sweet song. I like that the phrase “It’s that Old Devil Moon having his fling once more” was stolen by Yip Harburg for one of my favorite of lyrics.

      Thanks for visiting the blog …

      Best,
      Suzanne

      Reply
    • Suzanne says

      September 27, 2015 at 1:18 am

      This one from Teddi King is really lovely:
      https://open.spotify.com/track/0BzYwxMMBsIdomm2l6Q79h

      Reply

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