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1937 song by George and Ira Gershwin
"
They Can't Take That Away from Me
" is a 1937 popular
song
with music by
George Gershwin
and lyrics by
Ira Gershwin
. It was introduced by
Fred Astaire
in the 1937 film
Shall We Dance
and gained huge success.
Overview
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The song is performed by Astaire on the lonely foggy deck of a ferry from New Jersey to Manhattan. It is sung to
Ginger Rogers
, who remains silent listening throughout. No dance sequence follows, which was unusual for the Astaire-Rogers numbers. Astaire and Rogers did dance to it later in their last movie
The Barkleys of Broadway
(1949) in which they played a married couple with marital issues. The song, in the context of
Shall We Dance
, notes some of the things that Peter (Astaire) will miss about Linda (Rogers). The lyrics include "the way you wear your hat, the way you sip your tea", and "the way you hold your knife, the way we danced till three". Each verse is followed by the line "no, no, they can't take that away from me". The basic meaning of the song is that even if the lovers part, though physically separated the nostalgic memories
[5]
cannot be forced from them. Thus, it is a song of mixed joy and sadness.
The verse references the song "
The Song Is Ended (but the Melody Lingers On)
" by
Irving Berlin
:
- Our romance won't end on a sorrowful note, though by tomorrow you're gone. The song is ended, but as the songwriter wrote, 'the melody lingers on'. They may take you from me, I'll miss your fond caress, but though they take you from me I'll still possess...
.
George Gershwin died two months after the film's release, and he was posthumously nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Original Song
at the 1937 Oscars but lost out to "
Sweet Leilani
" which had been made tremendously popular by
Bing Crosby
.
The song is featured in
Kenneth Branagh
's musical version of Shakespeare's
Love's Labour's Lost
(2000), in
Stephen Herek
's
Mr. Holland's Opus
(1995), and in
Barry Levinson
's
Rain Man
(1988). The
melodic hardcore
band
Strung Out
also sampled the song for the intro of "Analog", the opening track on their 2004 album
Exile in Oblivion
.
Other recordings
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See also
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References
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1992 musical
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