![]() Max Wilk in They’re Playing Our Song: Conversations with America’s Classic Songwriters tells a behind-the-scenes story of how Mercer got the idea for his lyric from Cole Porter’s “ You Do Something to Me.” “That one came from one of the early Cole Porter songs I heard when I first came to New York,” Mercer says. The film also introduced another memorable song from the duo of composer Harold Arlen and lyricist Johnny Mercer, “Hit the Road to Dreamland.” With little plot, the movie featured Paramount Studio contract players such as Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Dorothy Lamour, Veronica Lake, Paulette Goddard, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, Dick Powell and more. The movie was a “feel good” musical intended to entertain troops. Susan Sackett in Hollywood Sings! An Inside Look at Sixty Years of Academy Award-Nominated Songs says, “In a routine that centered mostly around a dance number performed by ballerina Vera Zorina (choreographed by her then-husband, the legendary George Balanchine) Johnston introduced the song.” ![]() This gem of a song, “That Old Black Magic,” written by composer Harold Arlen and lyricist Johnny Mercer for the 1942 film Star-Spangled Rhythm was played behind the opening credits and sung by relative unknown Johnny Johnston. ![]() ![]() “Arlen’s music is rife with repeated notes and octave drops, and Mercer’s phrasing makes the lyric mime the musical motion.” ![]()
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