How Long Has This Been Going On?

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How Long Has This Been Going On? ( Eng. How long has it been going on? ) is a pop song by George and Ira Gershwin from 1927.

History of origin

The Gershwin brothers wrote How Long Has This Been Going On? originally for a Broadway show called Smarty . In the piece, the song provided the opportunity for Adele Astaire and Jack Buchanan's "first kiss" . At its preview in Philadelphia , however , the musical was only poorly received; two weeks later the song was removed from the show and replaced with He Loves and She Loves .

After several changes in text, music and line-up, Smarty became the musical Funny Face (1927), in which other Gershwin songs were included, such as S'Wonderful, My One and Only and High Hat with Adele and Fred Astaire , but not How Long Has This Been Going On? . In 1957, thirty years later, Fred Astaire again starred with Audrey Hepburn in a film version of Fanny Face , in How Long Has This Been Going On? was both sung by Hepburn and in an instrumental version.

After its removal from the musical Smarty , the song was used in the musical Rosalie through the mediation of Florenz Ziegfeld , but not as a duet , but as a solo for the soubrette , played by Bobbe Arnst. Rosalie , starring Marilyn Miller, premiered on January 10, 1928 and has seen 335 performances. The only song that became popular from it was Gershwin's How Long Has This Been Going On? When Rosalie was filmed in Hollywood in 1937 , however, Cole Porter used new song material rather than songs from the Broadway production.

Features of the song

How Long Has This Been Going On? is about a couple who discovers the wonder of love with a first kiss. Alec Wilder refers to the “strange self-confidence” that the hesitant question of the title opens up: “Is it really what everyone feels? Why didn't anyone tell me about it? "

The 32- bar song is written in G major in the form AABA and is designed as a ballad . According to Allen Forte, the song's “charm and vitality” come from the “innovatively and strategically placed harmonies ”; He describes the integration of lyrics, rhythm and harmonies as exemplary for the best songs of this period; He mentioned George Gershwin's use of pentatonic scales based on folk and church music of the African American referenced. As an example of Ira Gershwin's talent as a songwriter, he quotes the third line of the lyrics, Little wow, tell me now , which introduces the ending rhyme , the first word of the title, How . In the bridge he used the erotic lines as the "background for George's exotic chords":

Oh, I feel that I could melt
into heaven I'm hurled

Cover versions

In the following years, How Long Has This Been Going On? frequently recorded, initially by Lee Wiley , who in the early 1940s was the first female singer to record a number of themed albums dedicated to composers. She recorded her Gershwin album (1939) with Eddie Condon , Bud Freeman and Joe Bushkin . But it was only through Peggy Lee with the Benny Goodman Orchestra that the song became popular in 1941. In the following years, other cover versions of the song were made by Lena Horne (1945), June Christy / Stan Kenton (1955), Sarah Vaughan (1957), Ella Fitzgerald ( Ella Sings Gershwin 1957), Louis Armstrong with Oscar Peterson (1957), Chet Baker (1958), Julie London (1958), Johnny Hartman (1959), Judy Garland ( Judy at Carnegie Hall 1961), later by Liza Minnelli ( New Feelin ' 1970), Van Morrison on the album of the same name (1996), Barbara Carroll , Susannah McCorkle , Janis Siegel and Karrin Allyson . In instrumental versions a. a. by Till Brönner , Bill Charlap , Coleman Hawkins , Keith Jarrett , Brad Mehldau ( Live in Tokyo ), Bjarne Nerem , Joe Pass , Frank Rosolino , Ralph Sharon , Zoot Sims and Frank Vignola shows the song's potential as a jazz standard .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d e song portrait at Jazz standards
  2. ^ Music by Sigmund Romberg and text by PG Wodehouse
  3. See Wilder American Popular Song Oxford, 1972
  4. a b Rhoda Koenig Of innocence and experience: How Long Has This Been Going On? , The Independent , Nov. 14, 1993
  5. Allen Forte: The American Popular Ballad of the Golden Era, 1924-1950: A Study in Musical Design , quoted by Jazzstandards.com