Isn't It Romantic?

For the 1948 film, see Isn't It Romantic? (film).

"Isn't It Romantic?"
Song from Love Me Tonight
Published	1932
Writer	Lorenz Hart
Composer	Richard Rodgers

"Isn't It Romantic?" is a popular song and part of the Great American Songbook. The music was composed by Richard Rodgers, with lyrics by Lorenz Hart. It has a 32-bar chorus in ABAC form. Alec Wilder, in his book American Popular Song: The Great Innovators 1900-1950, calls it "a perfect song."

It was introduced by Jeanette MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier in the Paramount film Love Me Tonight (1932). It has since been recorded numerous times, with and without vocals, by many jazz and popular artists. It has also since been featured in a number of movies, including several other Paramount films, such as William Seiter's Hot Saturday (1932), Mark Sandrich's Skylark (1941), Preston Sturges' The Lady Eve (1941) and The Palm Beach Story (1942), and several Billy Wilder films, including A Foreign Affair (1948) and Sabrina (1954). It's also featured in the 1999 remake of The Out-of-Towners.

In Love Me Tonight, the song is used in a sequence in which it is first sung by Maurice Chevalier, a tailor, and then taken up by others (his customer, a cabby, a composer, a troop of soldiers, a band of gypsies) and is finally heard and sung by a princess, played by Jeanette MacDonald.^[1] The lyrics in the film are not the same as those in the published version. In 2004 this version finished at #73 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs survey of top tunes in American cinema.

The title is often used in headlines in the New York Times, such as "The Recession. Isn’t It Romantic?",^[2] "Italy: Isn’t It Romantic?",^[3] and "In Madrid, Isn’t It Romantic?".^[4]^[5]

Ella Fitzgerald recorded this on her 1957 Verve release Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Rodgers & Hart Songbook

Notable recordings

Chet Baker - My Funny Valentine (1954)
Mel Torme - It's a Blue World (1955)
Tal Farlow - Tal (1956)
Peggy Lee and George Shearing - Beauty and the Beat! (1959)
Bill Evans Trio - Live at Shelly's Manne-Hole (1963)
Pasadena Roof Orchestra - The Best of the Pasadena Roof Orchestra (1973)
Mervyn Warren & Josie Aiello – The Out-of-Towners (1999)
Rod Stewart – Stardust: The Great American Songbook, Volume III (2004)

References

Rodgers and Hart

Musicals	The Garrick Gaieties Dearest Enemy The Girl Friend Peggy-Ann A Connecticut Yankee Present Arms Ever Green Simple Simon America's Sweetheart Jumbo On Your Toes Babes in Arms I'd Rather Be Right The Boys from Syracuse I Married an Angel Too Many Girls Higher and Higher Pal Joey By Jupiter

Songs	"Manhattan" "Mountain Greenery" "Here in My Arms" "Blue Room" "My Heart Stood Still" "Thou Swell" "To Keep My Love Alive" "You Took Advantage of Me" "With a Song in My Heart" "A Ship Without a Sail" "Dancing on the Ceiling" "Ten Cents a Dance" "He Was Too Good to Me" "I've Got Five Dollars" "Isn't It Romantic?" "Lover" "Mimi" "Blue Moon" "It's Easy to Remember (And So Hard to Forget)" "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" "My Romance" "Little Girl Blue" "There's a Small Hotel" "Glad to Be Unhappy" "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" "Where or When" "I Wish I Were in Love Again" "My Funny Valentine" "Johnny One Note" "The Lady Is a Tramp" "Have You Met Miss Jones?" "I'll Tell the Man in the Street" "Spring Is Here" "Falling in Love with Love" "This Can't Be Love" "Sing for Your Supper" "I Like to Recognize the Tune" "I Didn't Know What Time It Was" "Give It Back to the Indians" "You're Nearer" "It Never Entered My Mind" "I Could Write a Book" "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" "Ev'rything I've Got" "Wait till You See Her"

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