My Ship
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/05/Bundesarchiv_Bild_146-2005-0119%2C_Kurt_Weill.jpg/220px-Bundesarchiv_Bild_146-2005-0119%2C_Kurt_Weill.jpg)
"My Ship" is a popular song written for the 1941 Broadway musical Lady in the Dark, with music by Kurt Weill and lyrics by Ira Gershwin.
The music is marked "Andante espressivo"; Gershwin describes it as "orchestrated by Kurt to sound sweet and simple at times, mysterious and menacing at other".[1]
It was premiered by Gertrude Lawrence in the role of Liza Elliott, the editor of a fashion magazine. In the context of the show, the song comes in a sequence in which Elliott, in psychoanalysis, recalls a turn-of-the-century song she knew in her childhood.[2]
The song was not included in the 1944 Hollywood film Lady in the Dark, a fact which Ira Gershwin found inexplicable:
Later, when Lady in the Dark was filmed, the script necessarily had many references to the song. But for some unfathomable reason the song itself—as essential to this musical drama as a stolen necklace or a missing will to a melodrama—was omitted. Although the film was successful financially, audiences evidently were puzzled or felt thwarted or something, because items began to appear in movie-news columns mentioning that the song frequently referred to in Lady in the Dark was 'My Ship'. I hold a brief for Hollywood, having been more or less a movie-goer since I was nine; but there are times ...
— Ira Gershwin[1]
In 2003, Herbie Hancock won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Solo for a version of this song released on the album Directions in Music: Live at Massey Hall.
Cover versions
[edit]Artists who have recorded the song include (in alphabetical order):
- Ernestine Anderson – The Toast of the Nation's Critics (1958)
- Dorothy Ashby – Soft Winds (1961)
- Cindy Blackman – Works on Canvas (1999)
- Jane Ira Bloom – Sixteen Sunsets (2013)[3]
- Betty Buckley – An Evening at Carnegie Hall (1996)
- Dee Dee Bridgewater – This Is New (Verve, 2002), Midnight Sun (Decca, 2011)
- Ron Carter – Peg Leg (Milestone, 1978)
- June Christy – Duet (with Stan Kenton) (1955), Ballads for Night People (1959)
- Rosemary Clooney – Show Tunes (Concord, 1989)
- Jacqui Dankworth – As the Sun Shines Down on Me (2002)
- Miles Davis with Gil Evans – Miles Ahead (Columbia, 1957)
- Steve Davis – Eloquence (2010)
- Doris Day – I Have Dreamed (1961)
- Ella Fitzgerald and Joe Pass - Easy Living (1986)
- Judy Garland (1953)
- Herbie Hancock, Michael Brecker, Roy Hargrove – Directions in Music: Live at Massey Hall (2002)
- Johnny Hartman – The Voice That Is! (1964), Hartman for Lovers (2010)
- Caroline Henderson – Lonely House (2013)
- Wynton Kelly – Undiluted (1965)
- Roland Kirk – I Talk with the Spirits (1964)
- Ute Lemper
- Carmen Lundy – Self Portrait (JVC, 1996)
- Doretta Morrow
- Liza Minnelli –
- Hugh Masekela – Almost Like Being in Jazz (Chissa, 2005)[4]
- Jessye Norman – Lucky to be me (Philips, 1992)
- Oscar Peterson and Nelson Riddle – Oscar Peterson and Nelson Riddle (Verve, 1963)
- Flora Purim - Perpetual Emotion (Narada, 2001)
- Sonny Rollins – The Standard Sonny Rollins (RCA Victor, 1964)
- Helen Schneider
- George Shearing – My Ship (MPS, 1975)
- Jeri Southern – When Your Heart's on Fire (1957), The Very Thought of You: the Decca Years 1951–1957 (1999)
- Cal Tjader – Soul Burst (1966)
- Dawn Upshaw – I Wish It So (Nonesuch, 1994)
- Cedar Walton – Cedar! (Prestige, 1967)
- Dionne Warwick - On Stage And In The Movies (Scepter, 1967)
- Julie Andrews(Star! (film)1968etc)[5]
- Larry Willis – This Time the Dream's on Me (HighNote, 2012)
- Cassandra Wilson and Jacky Terrasson – Rendezvous (1997)
- Nancy Wilson – Broadway – My Way (1964)
- Sarah Vaughan – Great Songs From Hit Shows (1956)
A few notes of the song are sung in a Sesame Street cartoon sequence promoting the letter R from the show's premiere 1969–70 season.[6]
References
[edit]- ^ a b Gershwin, Ira (1959). Lyrics on Several Occasions (First ed.). New York: Knopf. OCLC 538209.
- ^ "Gertrude Lawrence – My Ship". YouTube.com. Archived from the original on 2021-12-15.
- ^ "Sixteen Sunsets – Jane Ira Bloom | Songs, Reviews, Credits | AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved 21 July 2020.
- ^ "Hugh Masekela – Almost Like Being In Jazz". Discogs. discogs.com. Retrieved 24 October 2017.
- ^ Spotify My Ship
- ^ "Classic Sesame Street animation – R for radio". YouTube.com. Archived from the original on 2021-12-15.
Further reading
[edit]- Furia, Philip (1996). Ira Gershwin: The Art of the Lyricist (First ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-508299-0.
- McClung, Bruce (2007). Lady in the Dark, Biography of a Musical. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-512012-4