Let's Call the Whole Thing Off explained

Let's Call the Whole Thing Off
Published:	by Gershwin Publishing Corp., New York^[1]
Artist:	Fred Astaire
B-Side:	Shall We Dance
Released:	April 3, 1937^[2]
Recorded:	March 3, 1937^[3]
Studio:	Los Angeles, California
Genre:	Jazz, pop vocal
Label:	Brunswick 7857^[4]
Composer:	George Gershwin
Lyricist:	Ira Gershwin
Prev Title:	They All Laughed
Prev Year:	1937
Next Title:	A Foggy Day
Next Year:	1938

"Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" is a song written by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin for the 1937 film Shall We Dance, where it was introduced by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers as part of a celebrated dance duet on roller skates.^{[5] [6]} The sheet music has the tempo marking of "Brightly".^[7] The song was ranked No. 34 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs.^[8]

Background

The song is most famous for its "You like to-may-to / And I like to-mah-to " and other verses comparing British and American English pronunciations.

The differences in pronunciation are not simply regional, however, but serve more specifically to identify class differences. At the time, typical American pronunciations were considered less "refined" by the upper-class, and there was a specific emphasis on the "broader" a sound.^[9] This class distinction with respect to pronunciation has been retained in caricatures, especially in the theater, where the longer a pronunciation is most strongly associated with the word darling.^[10]

Recordings

• In 1936, Kitty Brown also recorded the song with Les Brown and His Duke Blue Devils.^[11]
• Fred Astaire with Johnny Green & His Orchestra (1937)^[12]
• Shep Fields and his Riplling Rhythm Orchestra with vocalist Bobby Goday (1937) ^[13]
• Billie Holiday – (1937)
• Sam Cooke – Tribute to the Lady (1959)
• Ella Fitzgerald – on Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Songbook (1959),^[14] on the 1983 Pablo release Nice Work If You Can Get It, and in a 1957 duet with Louis Armstrong on Ella and Louis Again.
• Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney recorded the song for their radio show in 1960^[15] and it was subsequently released on the CD Bing & Rosie - The Crosby-Clooney Radio Sessions (2010).^[16]
• Harry Connick Jr. for the soundtrack for When Harry Met Sally (1989)
• Uri Caine – Rhapsody in Blue (2013)
• Willie Nelson with Cyndi Lauper on (2016)

Popular culture

• The song has been re-used in filmmaking and television production, most notably in When Harry Met Sally... – where it is performed by Louis Armstrong – and The Simpsons.
• In the February 18, 1970, Anne Bancroft television special, "Annie: The Women in the Life of a Man," Bancroft appears in a comedy sketch with David Susskind in which she plays a hapless singer in an audition who sings the song from sheet music, cluelessly ignoring the different pronunciation of to-may-to and to-mah-to, etc.^[17] Ira Gershwin relates a similar incident in his 1959 book.^[18] An essentially similar sketch was performed by comedians John Bird and John Fortune in the 1976 Amnesty International benefit concert A Poke in the Eye (With a Sharp Stick).
• The tune was also featured in the 2012 Broadway Musical Nice Work If You Can Get It.
• In a trailer of 2021 film , Venom sings the song while it is playing on the radio.
• In The Muppet Show episode #350, Sylvester Stallone sings a modified version of the song while dressed as a Roman gladiator and battling a dancing lion.

Further reading

• Book: Furia, Philip . Ira Gershwin: The Art of the Lyricist . registration . First . New York . Oxford University Press . 1996 . 0-19-508299-0 .
• Book: Rosenberg, Deena Ruth . Fascinating Rhythm: The Collaboration of George and Ira Gershwin . University of Michigan Press . 1991 . 978-0-472-08469-2 .

Notes and References

1. Book: Library of Congress. Copyright Office. . Catalog of Copyright Entries 1937 Musical Compositions New Series Vol 32 Pt 3 For the Year 1937 . 1937 . U.S. Govt. Print. Off. . United States Copyright Office . English.
2. Web site: Cover versions of Let's Call the Whole Thing Off by Fred Astaire with Johnny Green and His Orchestra SecondHandSongs. 2021-08-04. secondhandsongs.com.
3. Web site: BRUNSWICK 78rpm numerical listing discography: 7500 - 8000. 2021-08-04. 78discography.com.
4. Web site: Fred Astaire – Let's Call The Whole Thing Off / Shall We Dance (Shellac). en. Discogs.com. 2021-08-04.
5. Book: Philip Furia. Ira Gershwin: The Art of the Lyricist. Oxford University Press. 1997. 978-0-19-535394-5. 147.
6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOILZ_D3aRg YouTube
7. Book: The Joy of... George Gershwin. 1 January 2011. Yorktown Music Press. 978-1-78323-824-8. 1.
8. Web site: America's Greatest Music in the Movies . 2011-10-04 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110716072059/http://connect.afi.com/site/DocServer/songs100.pdf?docID=244 . 2011-07-16 .
9. Book: Listening to America: An Illustrated History of Words and Phrases from our Lively and Splendid Past . registration . 511 . 1982 . Simon and Schuster . Flexner, Stuart Berg. 9780671248956 .
10. Book: A Dictionary of Epithets and Terms of Address . registration . Dunkling, Leslie . 1990 . Routledge . 86. 9780415007610 .
11. Web site: [{{Allmusic|class=artist|id=p543366/biography|pure_url=yes}} Biography by Eugene Chadbourne ]. AllMusic. September 30, 2011.
12. Web site: Astaire on 78 . America.net . 2011-10-04 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110927172847/http://www.america.net/~davdmock/astaire.htm . 2011-09-27 .
13. https://archive.org/details/78_lets-call-the-whole-thing-off_shep-fields-and-his-rippling-rhythm-orchestra-bobby_gbia0152256b Shep Fields performs "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off
14. Web site: Ella Fitzgerald Discography – Part 2 – The Verve Years part 1 . Ellafitzgerald.altervista.org . 2011-10-04 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110929134926/http://ellafitzgerald.altervista.org/discog_02.htm . 2011-09-29 .
15. Web site: A Bing Crosby Discography. BING magazine. International Club Crosby. December 8, 2017.
16. Web site: Bing & Rosie: The Crosby-Clooney Radio Sessions. AllMusic. December 8, 2017.
17. Web site: Obscure Videos: '70s Specials. Broadway.com. November 13, 2018.
18. Book: Gershwin, Ira . Lyrics on Several Occasions . First . New York . Knopf . 1959 . 538209.