Let's Face the Music and Dance
"Let's Face the Music and Dance" is a song written in 1936 by Irving Berlin for the film Follow the Fleet, where it was introduced by Fred Astaire and featured in a celebrated dance duet with Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It is also used in Pennies from Heaven, where Astaire's voice is lip-synched by Steve Martin, and in a celebrated Morecambe and Wise sketch involving newsreader Angela Rippon.[1] [2]
In 1997, it was used in a famous advert for Allied Dunbar.
Barbra Streisand performed a line in her "Color Me Barbra Medley" from the TV special and album "Color Me Barbra". In "New Killer Star", song from David Bowie 2003 album Reality, there's a reference of the title before the chorus. The BBC used Nat King Cole's version of the song as their theme music for the mockumentary series Twenty Twelve.
Notable recordings
- Bea Arthur – Bea Arthur on Broadway: Just Between Friends (2002)
- Tony Bennett – The Beat of My Heart (1957), Bennett/Berlin (1987)
- Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga – Cheek to Cheek (2014)
- Kenny Clarke/Francy Boland Big Band – All Smiles (1968) (aka Let's Face the Music)
- Shirley Bassey – Let's Face the Music (1962)
- Nat King Cole – Let's Face the Music! (1964)
- Natalie Cole – Stardust (1996)
- Barbara Cook – Mostly Sondheim (2002) – in a medley with "The Song is You" (Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein, II)
- Doris Day – Hooray For Hollywood (1959)
- Ella Fitzgerald – Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Irving Berlin Songbook (1958)
- Jane Krakowski – 'The Laziest Gal in Town' – Jane Krakowski Live at Feinsteins's Loews Regency (2010) – Solo Album
- Diana Krall – When I Look in Your Eyes (1999)
- Susannah McCorkle – Ballad Essentials (2008)
- Anita O'Day – Pick Yourself Up (1956)
- Taco Ockerse – Let's Face The Music (1984)
- Renato Russo – The Stonewall Celebration Concert (1994)
- Frank Sinatra – Ring-A-Ding-Ding (1961), Trilogy: Past Present Future (1980)
- Caetano Veloso – Omaggio a Federico e Giulietta (1999)