Ten Cents a Dance

This article is about the 1930 song. For the films, see Ten Cents a Dance (1931 film) and Ten Cents a Dance (1945 film).

"Ten Cents a Dance"
Song from Simple Simon
Published	1930
Writer	Lorenz Hart
Composer	Richard Rodgers

"Ten Cents a Dance" is a popular song in which a taxi dancer laments the hardships of her job. The music was written by Richard Rodgers, with lyrics by Lorenz Hart. The song was published in 1930. It has the usual clever lyrics by Hart including a very intriguing rhyme: "Sometimes I think I've found my hero, but it's a queer ro-mance..."

The song was originally written for Lee Morse who was acting in the musical Simple Simon, but when Morse showed up intoxicated at the Boston opening of the musical, Florenz Ziegfeld fired her. She was replaced by Ruth Etting in the show, and Etting popularized the song as well in a Columbia recording made in 1930. This recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999. In 2012 it was added to the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry list of "culturally, historically, or aesthetically important" American sound recordings.^[1]

Ella Fitzgerald recorded this song in 1956 on her Verve double-album Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Rodgers and Hart Songbook.

Barbara Stanwyck starred in the film Ten Cents a Dance (1931), which was inspired by the song. In the MGM biographical film about Etting, Love Me or Leave Me (1955), the song is performed by Doris Day. The Day recording was also released by Columbia. Michelle Pfeiffer also performs the song in the film The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989).

In an episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show titled "Rhoda the Beautiful", Cloris Leachman sings this song, reminiscing about her character's glory days as a pageant winner.

In the stage play Some Men, by Terrance McNally, the character Angel Eyes claims that the song was written with him in mind, although he never mentions Lorenz Hart by name.

Etting's version of the song is featured in the 2010 video game BioShock 2.

Joan Morris and William Bolcom recorded it for their 1981 LP, "The Rodgers and Hart Album," and later included the track on "The Rodgers and Hart CD."

Parodies

In the cartoon show Cow & Chicken episode "Supermodel Cow", Cow becomes a celebrity. After she loses popularity, she is found by her brother in a milk bar singing "10 Cents a Glass."^[2] In the cartoon Ducktails, the story of how Scrooge McDuck met personal pilot Launchpad McQuack involves them dickering over McQuack's rate of pay, with McQuack confusingly suggesting "ten cents a dance" instead of "ten cents a mile."

References

'Notes

↑ "The National Recording Registry 2011". National Recording Preservation Board of the Library of Congress. Library of Congress. May 24, 2012.
↑ Video: http://community.knowitallvideo.com/_Cow-Chicken-Supermodel-Cow/video/27471/1663.html

External links

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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