The Tunesmith & The Lyricist: Vernon Duke, Ira Gershwin and the Making of a Standard

This book applies the specific to explain the general. It takes one song, written in the mid 1930s, and uses it to address larger issues regarding popular music in the twentieth century. The song— ”I Can’t Get Started With You”—is discussed in considerable detail, but so is jazz and its connection with the musical theater, the early lives and collaborations of the song’s creators, the nature of lyric writing, the structure of the popular song, the legacy of George Gershwin, the musicians who performed and recorded “I Can’t Get Started” (its common title), and the later lives, independent musical contributions, and legacies of Vernon Duke and Ira Gershwin.