1935 Popular Music, Songs and Artists

Shirley Temple
On The Good Ship Lollipop
The first song by the child star for her 1934 film BRIGHT EYES, This song would go on to become Miss Temple’s trademark. Miss temple would go on to be featured and star in many films, but eventually, leave show-business and pursue a successful career in The United Nations and The State Department. She is now retired.

Fred Astaire
Cheek To Cheek
Two Legends – One Song. Irving Berlin wrote Cheek to Cheek for Astaire’s Top Hat (#7 below), which co-starred his most well-known partner Ginger Rodgers.
Astaire was not as well known for singing capabilities so much as his incredible dancing ability. Debbie Reynolds tells of him spending hours and hours practicing with the choreographer Hermes Pan. Mr. Astaire was a consummate hard-working professional who strived for perfection through hard work.

Glen Gray
Blue Moon
Written by Rogers and Hart, this one song that tends to make a regular comeback, originally recorded by Glenn Gray and The Casa Loma Orchestra. The Marcels made it a number on the Billboard charts in 1961. Gray was a saxophonist that fronted the orchestra. His name appeared on most of the recordings from 1934 on.

Cole Porter
You’re The Top
Originally sung by Ethel Merman in the Porter musical Anything Goes. This recording was made by the composer, lyricist himself, Cole Porter. Mr. Porter was born in 1891 and is a legend of the Broadway stage. A musical film of his life was made in 2004 and titled De-Lovely (another song from Anything Goes). The movie starred Kevin Kline and Ashley Judd.

Eddie Duchin
I Won’t Dance
This song was written by Jerome Kern with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein and Otto Harbach for a 1934 musical called Three Sisters which opened in London and flopped. When it was decided to film the Broadway show Roberta the song was re-worked by Kern and Harbach and included in the movie.

Ethel Merman
I Get a Kick Out of You

This is another hit out of Cole Porter’s Anything Goes. The musical legends of both Porter and Merman would grow out of this musical as they both become stars on the musical sky. One thing that should be mentioned here is that there is a line from the song that would be cut and reinstated over the years as the harmfulness of drugs was discovered and being true to a creator’s original work was argued out. The Line is “I get no kick from cocaine, even if I took one little sniff it would bore me incredibly too. But I get a kick out of you.”

Fats Waller
I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter
With music by Fred E. Ahlert and lyrics by Joe Young, this song would become part of what is known as The Great American Song Book. The book itself doesn’t exist but it’s meaning is clear. If a song has lasted for a certain number of years and is retained in people’s memory, then it is part of the book. Many songs from different periods of American Music still come up today, some of them in commercial jingles, others as part of a movie score. This song haunts our collective memory, and I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself A Letter is included in these songs. The Song was recorded several times throughout the 20th century by Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and Barry Manilow.

Richard Himber and his Orchestra
It Was Just One Of Those Things
Written by Cole Porter for the musical Jubilee, this song would take on a life of its own as it was recorded over the years by several artists. Twice by Doris Day for two of her films, Lullaby of Broadway and Young At Heart. Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby and Lena Horne recorded it. It was used in JD Salinger’s novel as the narrator says of the song even the “stinking band” in the hotel lounge “couldn’t ruin it entirely.” A line from the song, “goodbye farewell amen,” was used as the title for the last episode of the hit series MASH. John Barrowman of TV’s Torchwood has recorded the song for the twenty-first century.

The Dorsey Brothers
The Lullaby of Broadway
Harry Warren wrote the music for this song and lyrics by Al Dubin, the song made its first appearance in the film, Gold Deggirs of 1935. That same year it was also used as background music in a scene from the Bette Davis movie Special Agent. It would eventually win the 1936 Academy Award for Best Original Song. The song would grow in popularity and would have a film named after it in 1951 starring Doris Day. It would be used in a Merrie Melody cartoon and would become a pivotal song in the plot of the Broadway version of 42nd St. sung by Jerry Orbach, Lumiaire of the film Beauty and The Beast.

Louis Armstrong
You Are My Lucky Star
Recorded by Louis Armstrong, the song would go on to be recorded in the film Broadway Melody of 1936. But the song would become an important part of MGM musicals when Debbie Reynolds sang it in what some call the most important movie musical of all time, Singin In The Rain.