"A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody" is apopular song written byIrving Berlin in 1919 which became the theme song of theZiegfeld Follies. The first verse and refrain are considered part of theGreat American Songbook and are often covered as ajazz standard.
The portion of the song composed entirely by Berlin and published assheet music contained the first verse and refrain of the original stage number. The refrain begins, "A pretty girl is like a melody / That haunts you night and day", a summary of the song's extendedsimile. The refrain is better known than the introductory verse, which critic Josh Rubins called "mercifully little-known".[1]
The later verses from the original 1919 stage show werepatter lyrics by Berlin to the air of classical tunes; this was a commonTin Pan Alley trick. These verses were comical vignettes of the singer's past trysts, successful or otherwise. Their lyrics were long believed lost, but survived in the show's unpublished script, and were also recalled by cast memberDoris Eaton Travis (1904–2010). The source music was:[2]
| Composer | Piece |
|---|---|
| Antonín Dvořák | Humoresque op.101 no.7 |
| Felix Mendelssohn | "Spring Song"op.62, no.6 |
| Jules Massenet | "Elegy" fromLes Érinnyes |
| Jacques Offenbach | Barcarolle fromThe Tales of Hoffmann |
| Franz Schubert | "Serenade" fromSchwanengesang |
| Robert Schumann | "Träumerei" fromKinderszenen |
Magee concludes, from Travis' lack of memory of theTräumerei, that it was dropped from the number during rehearsals.[3]
Berlin had agreed withFlorenz Ziegfeld to write one act of the 1919 follies, including a "Ziegfeld Girl number" to showcase theshowgirls.[4] He first conceived of the classical portion, to match costumes the girls would be wearing.[4] He needed aframing device for the entire sequence, and so subsequently wrote the initial verse and refrain which would become famous.[4]
In the 1919Follies, the song was sung by the tenorJohn Steel.[5] He sang the first verse and chorus alone on stage; then each of the remaining five verses while a showgirl sashayed by in costume appropriate to the quoted air.[5] The final refrain saw Steel surrounded by all five beauties.[5] This format was the template for similar numbers in many musical revues of subsequent decades.[6]
"A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody" was the hit song of that year's Follies, and became the theme song for all later Follies.[5][7][8]
In the 1936 filmThe Great Ziegfeld, the song was the centerpiece musical number performed on a huge set containing a spiral staircase, which has been compared to a wedding cake[9][10] or "giant meringue".[11] The scene reworked the original stage number on a far grander scale, with many dancers in various period costumes and a wide array of classical music references.[12] The scene became famous and was included in the 1974 anthology filmThat's Entertainment![9][13]
"An Experiment in Modern Music", the 1924 concert whereGeorge Gershwin'sRhapsody in Blue premiered, also featured a "Semi-Symphonic Arrangement of Popular Melodies", combining three Berlin tunes: "Alexander's Ragtime Band", "A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody" and "Orange Blossoms in CA".[14]
The song was used frequently in the annualMiss America pageant prior to 1955, when "There She Is, Miss America" by Bernie Wayne became its new theme song.[15] In 1963, Tom Prideaux wrote inLife magazine that the song "has been played ever since [1919] for God knows how many beauty contests, debutantecotillions and strip-tease acts."[16] It was also often used in catwalk fashion shows.[8][1]
Fred Astaire danced to the song in the filmBlue Skies in 1946. It was the theme song to the 1950s television game showThe Big Payoff and "The Dream Girl of 1967" (19 December 1966 – 28 April 1967) on ABC-TV Daytime USA, and it was performed and remade for instrumental byPercy Faith before being replaced byChuck Barris' New Theme of the show "(The) Hunk O'Love" to the end of the series.
Among the singers who have recorded the song arePat Boone,Bobby Vinton,Bing Crosby,Vic Damone,Ethel Merman,Rudy Vallée,Bobby Gordon,Frank Sinatra andJudy Garland. Jazz versions have been recorded by musicians includingPaul Whiteman,[17]Louis Armstrong,[18]Toots Thielemans,Eddie Heywood,[19]Artie Shaw,George Shearing,[19]Django Reinhardt,Mose Allison,Earl Hines,Coleman Hawkins andDon Byas. A clarinet version performed byWoody Allen with thePreservation Hall Jazz Band is on the soundtrack of his 2000 movieSmall Time Crooks.[20]
In 1947, Berlin called the song one of his five most important songs structurally, saying he used the "same rhythmic pattern" in other songs.[12] Later he called it "the best individual song written for a musical".[21]
Josh Rubins wrote in 1988 that "'A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody'—one of Berlin-the-composer's best things—has been seriously damaged by overexposure and insensitive handling".[1] He states that by the 1960s "the song's first four chords devolved into a vaudeville gag: musical shorthand for any reference to overt female sexuality (or transvestism)."[1]
Jeffrey Magee in 2012 argues for a reappraisal in the light of the rediscovered classical verses, writing that "a scene usually understood as an earnest hymn to feminine pulchritude had an unmistakably comic element".[22]
Several of Berlin's laterFollies songs, including "The Girls of My Dreams" and "Say It With Music", have been described as having been "cloned" from "A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody".[23]
In the 1960sMad magazine published a collection of parody lyrics of well-known songs, including "Louella Schwartz Describes Her Malady"; inIrving Berlin et al. v. E.C. Publications, Inc. theUnited States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that this did not violate Berlin's copyright.[24]
Stephen Sondheim wrote the song "Beautiful Girls" from the 1972 stage musicalFollies based on this song. In fact, since the musical is supposed to be set on a former theater (based on theZiegfeld Follies), some of the songs of the show are pastiches of tunes from this same time, written by such composers asBerlin himself,Richard Rodgers,Jerome Kern,Cole Porter,Sigmund Romberg and others.
The album69 Love Songs includes a song "A Pretty Girl is...", whose final verse begins "A melody is like a pretty girl". The first verse begins "A pretty girl is like aminstrel show". The 1919Follies' had also featured a song called "I'd Rather See a Minstrel Show".[6]
"A Pretty Boy Is Like a Melody" is an episode ofThe Brady Brides.[25]
