Whenever there’s a discussion of the great songwriters of the Golden Age of popular music (1920s to 1960s), we hear the names Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart, Harold Arlen, Harry Warren, Frank Loesser, George Gershwin, and a few others. You don’t very often hear names Yip Harburg, PF Webster, Johnny Burke, Sammy Cahn, or Johnny Mercer. But you certainly don’t hear the name Dorothy Fields, the only woman of the bunch. The lyricists seem to be given a backseat to the composers and the lone woman no seat at all.
Dorothy Fields was born in 1904 to immigrant parents like so many of the Golden Age songwriters. Her parents were among the millions of Jews who came to America in the late 1880s to escape antisemitism and seek a better life.
When their children started their careers around 1920, some of them chose the flourishing music business. The result was that a preponderance of the Golden Age songwriters was Jewish, which affected the music.
But that’s the subject of a future column.
Dorothy’s father Lou Fields was part of a very popular comic duo, but later he turned to producing and became the most influential producer of Broadway musicals of the time.
When his daughter Dorothy expressed her ambition to become an actress, Lew Fields could easily have helped her get started as he had her two older brothers, but he vehemently opposed the idea of a girl going into the tough world of show business.
Let’s give him credit and assume he was protecting her when instead he used bis influence to thwart her ambition. So, Dorothy took to writing lyrics.
She had her first hit in 1928, when she was just 24 years old. She collaborated with composer Jimmy McHugh on “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love, Baby,” which they wrote for Harlem’s Cotton Club. A few years later when the Depression hit, it became a kind of anthem.
Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields worked together until 1935. Other songs of theirs were also hits and ultimately became part of The Great American Songbook: “On the Sunny Side of the Street,” “Exactly Like You,” “Don’t Blame Me,” and “I’m in the Mood For Love.”
Each song had that Dorothy Fields “touch”a direct and unique way of expressing a thought:
- “Diamond bracelets Woolworth doesn’t sell, baby” from “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love, Baby”
- “Grab your coat and get your hat, leave your worries on the doorstep” from “On the Sunny Side of the Street”
- “I know why my mother taught me to be true. She meant me for someone exactly like you” from “Exactly Like You”
- “That doggoned moon above makes me need someone like you to love” from “Don’t Blame Me”
- “And if it should rain, we’ll let it” from “I’m in the Mood for Love”
In 1934, Dorothy Fields was asked by MGM Studios to work on the film “Roberta,” starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It had been a Broadway hit with music by composer Jerome Kern.
Kern had made his name in 1927 by creating the first story musical “Showboat “with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II. It was the first musical to integrate the music into the plot which became the standard format for the genre.
Fields rewrote the lyrics for Astaire’s “I Won’t Dance.” He refuses to dance because it would cause amorous feelings. Fields puts it this way:
“Heaven blessed us. I’m not asbestos.” Kern asked her to write the lyrics for another Astaire and Rogers movie, “Swing Time.” Their collaboration produced three songs that became classics and a part of The Great American Songbook:
“Pick Yourself Up”Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again.”
“A Fine Romance””We should be like a couple of hot tomatoes, but you’re as cold as yesterday’s mashed potatoes.”
“The Way You Look Tonight,” a pretty ballad that won the Oscar that year for best song: “Never, never change, keep that breathless charm because I love you just the way you look tonight.”
Fields returned to New York in 1939 while Kern remained in Hollywood. Back in New York, she began to explore an idea she had for a new musical to star her friend Ethel Merman. It would be based on the life of sharp-shooter Annie Oakley.
Fields presented the idea to the new producing team Rodgers and Hammerstein. They agreed with Merman as the star, Fields doing the book and lyricswith Kern as composer. Fields, who was a disciplined hard worker, set about developing the script, characterizations and outlining the songs. But just as they were about to start, Kern had a stroke and died.
It was a “pick yourself up” moment, and the solution was Irving Berlin. The producers asked him to step in, but he hesitated because he wasn’t used to writing story songs and he didn’t know if he could do it. He asked for a few days to test himself. He took the scripts and Dorothy’s plans home and in 12 days returned with three songswith words and music: “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” “Doing What Comes Naturally,” and “You Can’t Get a Man with a Gun.” All are excellent songs that fit the story perfectly.
“Annie Get Your Gun” was a huge success, with 1,200 performances on Broadway and being made into a popular movie with Betty Hutton and Howard Keel.
But again, Dorothy Fields was shortchanged. Berlin gets the credit for the musical whereas the storyline, characters, and even the ideas for the songs came from Dorothy Fields.
The credits should state “Dorothy Fields’ “Annie Get Your Gun,” words and music by Irving Berlin.
After the great success of “Annie,” Fields remained in New York, collaborating on Broadway musicals by writing lyrics and the booksincluding three for Cole Porterwhile working with Arthur Schwartz and Cy Coleman. The best of these works was “Sweet Charity” in 1966, which introduced the quintessential Fields lyric “Big Spender.”
“As soon as you walked into the joint
I could l see you were a man of distinction.”
Fields’ career spanned 1928 to her death in 1974. It was an unusually long time for a popular music songwriter but attests to her great talent and also her willingness to adapt to changing trends.
She had co-written over 400 songs for 15 musicals and 26 movies and had been the creative force behind one of the most successful musicals ever produced, “Annie Get Your Gun.”
The songwriters of The Golden Age created a whole new style of musical, breaking with the tradition of using European-style operettas. The new musical was strictly Americanlighthearted, both in story and music.
And Dorothy Fields, as the lone woman in this group of extraordinarily talented songwriters, had made a major contribution with her use of slang, American idioms and lighthearted wit.
Fields was the first woman to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame (1971) and a third biography has just been published.
Furthermore, it seems she has the unique distinction of having added a phrase to our vocabulary! President Obama in his 2009 inaugural address apparently borrowed from Fields’ hit “Pick Yourself Up” when he said, “Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.”
What better accolade for a lyric writer than that?