Play a Simple Melody

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"Play a Simple Melody" is a song from the 1914 musical, Watch Your Step, words and music by Irving Berlin. The show was the first stage musical that Irving wrote; it ran for 175 performances New Amsterdam Theater in New York City. The one song from it that is well-remembered today is "Play a Simple Melody," one of the few true examples of counterpoint in American popular music—a melody running against a second melody, both with independent lyrics— (see below). Two others are "You're Just in Love," as well as "An Old-Fashioned Wedding" (see the 1966 revival of Annie Get Your Gun), also by Irving Berlin. The song became popular again after it was featured in the 1954 movie There's No Business Like Show Business, a movie starring Ethel Merman, Dan Dailey, Donald O'Connor, Johnnie Ray, Mitzi Gaynor, and Marilyn Monroe showcasing Irving Berlin songs from the whole of his career. In the movie Merman and Dailey sang the song in a vaudeville sequence. "Play a Simple Melody" achieved great popularity thereafter when Bing Crosby and his son, Gary, released a version of it.