George Gershwin: An Intimate Portrait by Walter Rimler

"There are some plum musical discussions in these pages, and enough backstage drama to satiate the anecdote hunters" Colin Fleming, Times Literary Supplement

$29.95

Hardcover

This song, with lyrics by Gus Kahn and Ira Gershwin, was dropped from Show Girl, a production that opened in New York City at the Ziegfeld Theatre on July 2, 1929.

It has been obscure for almost a century now but it contains one of George Gershwin's greatest verses ("One time I was gay as a king"): a sixteen-bar piece that begins in quiet intensity, achieved in part by use, in the key of F, of urgent minor key episodes leading to a fragile C major conclusion. 

The refrain ("Feeling sentimental"), also one of the composer's finest efforts, begins with a held note followed by a brief chromatic descent--which then becomes a slow soaring tune, one carried by an easy, sensual beat. The bridge ("When the sun goes down") has a simple, vulnerable quality that is equally fine and very romantic. But for a repetition of bars one and two at bars twenty-five and twenty-six, the refrain has no repetitions. 

So far as I know, the only recordings are by Elaine Stritch and Bobby Short.