Fun to Be Fooled

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Fun to Be Fooled is a pop song written by Harold Arlen (music), Ira Gershwin and EY Harburg (lyrics) and released in 1934.

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Arlen, Gershwin and Harburg wrote Fun to Be Fooled for the Broadway show Life begins at 8:40 . Arlen composed Fun to Be Fooled as a quasi- torch song ; the title of the song picks up on a popular cigarette slogan at the time ( It's Fun to Be Fooled / but It's More Fun to Know ), which became a popular idiom in the United States in 1934. According to Alec Wilder , the ballad was the most important song on the show, not least because of Arlen's unconventional touch and the 44-bar chorus of the song. In Arlen's Fun To Be Fooled you can hear - in the basic key of G major - the copious use of blue notes , which gives an intensified feeling of blues .

First recordings and later cover versions

The musicians who covered the song from 1934 onwards included Henry King and his Orchestra (Columbia 2941-D) and the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra ( Decca , with Bob Crosby , vocals).

The discographer Tom Lord lists a total of 22 (as of 2015) cover versions of the song in the field of jazz , u. a. from 1942 by Lee Wiley / Eddie Condon , Bobby Short , Ann Gilbert / Elliot Lawrence Orchestra, Jackie Paris ( Sings the Lyrics of Ira Gershwin , 1960), Barbara Lea ( Remembering Lee Wiley , 1976), Mabel Mercer , Teddi King , Julie Wilson ( Sings the Harold Arlen Songbook , 1976), Nancy Harrow , Richard Rodney Bennett , Marlene VerPlanck and Annie Ross ( Let Me Sing , 2005, with Warren Vaché and Bucky Pizzarelli , among others ). Singers like Tony Bennett and Johnny Mathis also had the pop song in their repertoire.

Web links

  • Inclusion in the catalog of the German National Library: DNB 358040167

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Michael Lasser: America's Songs II: Songs from the 1890s to the Post-War Years . 2014, p. 131
  2. ^ Edward Jablonski, Harold Arlen: Rhythm, Rainbows, and Blues : 1998, p. 91.
  3. ^ John Covach, Walter Everett: Traditions, Institutions, and American Popular Tradition 2013, p. 27.
  4. ^ David A. Jasen, Tin Pan Alley : An Encyclopedia of the Golden Age of American Song . 2004, p. 177.
  5. ↑ a b Tom Lord: Jazz discography (online)