The song of the day for Wednesday, May 6, 201 is “They Can’t Take That Away From Me.”

About This Song

This song was written by George and Ira Gershwin for the 1937 Fred Astaire – Ginger Rodgers movie Shall We Dance. Unlike most songs that Astaire introduced in his films, there was no dance number associated with “They Can’t Take That Away From Me.” It is one of the Gershwin’s finest love songs. George Gershwin died just two months after this film was released.

About This Version

Tony Bennett has recorded this lovely song several times, first in 1967 for the album For Once In My Life, with an arrangement by Torrie Zito. He also sang the song on MTV Unplugged concert in 1994 and as a duet with Brad Paisley for the Target version of Duets II. Today’s beautiful recording is, of course, from Steppin’ Out and was arranged by Tony Bennett and Ralph Sharon.

“They Can’t Take That Away From Me,” as well as Steppin’ Out, is available from iTunes.

I have two videos for you today. First is Tony Bennett singing today’s song with Elvis Costello from the MTV Unplugged concert:

And here is the inimitable Fred Astaire singing this song to Ginger Rogers, from Shall We Dance: