My Ship
"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.
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
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)
- Betty Bradley with Bob Chester and His Orchestra (Bluebird, 1941)[2]
- 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)
- 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)
- Roland Kirk - I Talk with the Spirits (1964)
- Ute Lemper
- Carmen Lundy - Self Portrait (JVC, 1996)
- Doretta Morrow
- Hugh Masekela - Almost Like Being in Jazz (Chissa, 2005)[3]
- Jessye Norman - Lucky to be me (Philips, 1992)
- Oscar Peterson and Nelson Riddle - Oscar Peterson and Nelson Riddle (Verve, 1963)
- Sonny Rollins - The Standard Sonny Rollins (RCA Victor, 1964)
- Helen Schneider
- George Shearing - My Ship (MPS, 1975)
- Stan Kenton Road Band '67
- 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)
- Larry Willis - This Time the Dream's on Me (HighNote, 2012)
- Cassandra Wilson & Jacky Terrasson - Rendezvous (1997)
- Nancy Wilson - Broadway - My Way (1964)
References
- ^ a b Gershwin, Ira (1959). Lyrics on Several Occasions (First ed.). New York: Knopf. OCLC 538209.
- ^ "Bob Chester And His Orchestra", Discogs.
- ^ "Hugh Masekela – Almost Like Being In Jazz". Discogs. discogs.com. Retrieved 24 October 2017.
Further reading
- Furia, Philip (1996). Ira Gershwin: The Art of the Lyricist (First ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-508299-0.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - McClung, Bruce (2007). Lady in the Dark, Biography of a Musical. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-512012-4