They Didn’t Believe Me

Jerome Kern (1885–1946)

Jerome Kern, one of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, is my favorite songwriter of the Great American Songbook era. Six of my 100 Songs are Kern’s (and by the way, Jerry Garcia was named after him). Kern wrote more than 700 songs including such classics as “Ol’ Man River,” “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man of Mine,” “A Fine Romance,” “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” with Otto Harbach, “All the Things You Are,” “Long Ago (and Far Away),” and “The Way You Look Tonight,” which won the Academy Award in 1936 for best song. “The Last Time I Saw Paris” won the award in 1941.

Otto Harbach, Oscar Hammerstein II’s mentor and the lyricist/librettist of about fifty musical comedies, advocated the radical idea that songs in a musical should all further the plot and characterizations, in the manner of Gilbert and Sullivan. Kern, Hammerstein, and Harbach put the philosophy into practice with Show Boat, which also had the distinction of being the first “serious” musical. “They Didn’t Believe Me” is said to be the first jazz-influenced pop song. I find the structure one of the loveliest I have ever heard, more complex, moving, and surprising than any pop song that came before it. However, like many songs of the ‘20s and ‘30s, it was originally done much faster than this.