The song of the day for Saturday, May 20, 2017 is “The Way You Look Tonight.”
About This Song
Today’s song, “The Way You Look Tonight,” was written by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields in 1936 for the movie Swing Time. The song was introduced by Fred Astaire and won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for the year.
Dorothy Fields remarked “The first time Jerry 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.” Dorothy Fields was the first woman to win an Oscar for songwriting. It’s a magnificent love song that has found a strong position as a jazz standard, with recordings by Bing Crosby, Billie Holiday, Mel Tormé and Frank Sinatra.
About This Version
Tony Bennett has recorded today’s song several times. Today I’ve chosen his first recording from 1958 for the album Long Ago and Far Away. The arrangement is by Frank DeVol.
“The Way You Look Tonight,” as well as Long Ago and Far Away, is available from iTunes.
About Today
While our version of “The Way You Look Tonight” was Bennett’s first recording of the song, our video is his most recent. Here are Tony Bennett and Bill Charlap performing “The Way You Look Tonight” from their 2015 album The Silver Lining: The Music of Jerome Kern.
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