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.