Dorothy Fields
Dorothy Fields
Dorothy Fieldswas an American librettist and lyricist. She wrote over 400 songs for Broadway musicals and films. Her most well known pieces include "The Way You Look Tonight", "A Fine Romance", "On the Sunny Side of the Street", "Pick Yourself Up", "I'm in the Mood for Love" and "You Couldn't Be Cuter." Throughout her career, she collaborated with various influential figures in the American musical theater, including Jerome Kern, Cy Coleman, Irving Berlin, and Jimmy McHugh. Along with Ann Ronell,...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionSongwriter
Date of Birth15 July 1905
CountryUnited States of America
My father assigned me to keep his scrapbooks. At first I was interested in reading only his rave notices, but I got interested in reading what the critics were saying about whether the play was good or not.
We're confined to a framework of music, and I feel that the words can be poetic, but I wouldn't say poetry in the strictest sense.
No thesaurus can give you those words, no rhyming dictionary. They must happen out of you.
We've accumulated a lot of things over the years and many things from our grandmother. Hopefully it'll be all right. I really don't want to cry, but I can't help it.
The audience, going along with the story, knows when the song is stuck in, feels it, resents it and can't enjoy it, and the song fails.
Love is the reason you were born.
I'm in the mood for love, simply because you're near me. Funny, but when you're near me I'm in the mood for love.
I don't care how good a song is. If it holds back the storyline, stalls the plot, your audience will reject it.
A song doesn't just come on. I've always had to tease it out, squeeze it out. 'No thesaurus can give you those words, no rhyming dictionary. They must happen out of you.
The man in our society is the breadwinner; the woman has enough to do as the homemaker, wife and mother.
A song just doesn't come on. I've always had to tease it out, squeeze it out.
Keep it in tune with the times, but don't write with the specific purpose of trying to create a hit. If you're doing it strictly to make money, you're crazy. There are easier ways to make money.
A rhyme doesn't make a song.
The songwriter mustn't fall in love with his own song. If it doesn't belong, he can't push it into a show. Let him save it; maybe it'll fit in another show.