After transitioning from Broadway with his sister Adele, from the late 1910s through the early ’30s, Fred Astaire braided his singing and dancing into film. Actor, singer, choreographer, dancer, and songwriter—Astaire was one of the earliest jack-of-all-trades in film.
After making his film debut in Dancing Lady with Joan Crawford and Clark Gable in 1933, Astaire showcased more of his choreography on his breakthrough, Flying Down to Rio, alongside Ginger Rodgers and throughout his career from Holiday Inn (1942), Easter Parade (1948), Royal Wedding (1951), The Band Wagon (1953), Funny Face (1957), and Silk Stockings (1957), among dozens more through his final turn on-screen, the Francis Ford-Coppola-directed Finian’s Rainbow in 1968.
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In 1952, Astaire released his first album, The Astaire Story. More than 20 years later, Astaire recorded three more albums, recorded in London a year earlier, including A Couple of Song and Dance Men, featuring duets with Bing Crosby and his final album They Can’t Take These Away from Me, collection of show tunes spanning several decades.
Though he was mostly remembered for his song-and-dance, songwriting was also a great love of Astaire’s. Though everyone from Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, and more wrote many of the songs Astaire sang in his films, the actor also penned his songs of his own throughout his career.
Attitude Dancing, third album recorded during Astaire’s London Sessions, featured five songs written or co-written by him—”I’m Building Up To An Awful Letdown,” “You Worry Me,” “I Love Everybody But You,” which he wrote with his daughter Ava, “City of the Angels,” and “Life is Beautiful.” The album also included Astarie’s covers of Don McLean‘s 1975 song “Wonderful Baby,” Harry Nilsson and Ian Freebairn-Smith’s “The Wailing of the Willow,” and Carly Simon‘s “Attitude Dancing.”
“Songwriting was a serious hobby of mine,” Astaire said in his 1959 autobiography, Steps in Time. “At one point I really wanted to give up every other side of show business to concentrate on composing. I also wrote lyrics, but they were not my real goal. I’m afraid they were pretty bad. My music was not much either, but I was trying, and it rather jarred me that I couldn’t prove something.”
Here’s a look at four songs Astaire wrote throughout his career.
1. “I’m Building Up to An Awful Letdown” (1935)
Written by Fred Astaire and Johnny Mercer
“I suppose everyone has a secret yen to be a songwriter,” said Astaire. “Well, I was a sort of frustrated one in my early youth, too. … I wrote a number of songs, one of them with Johnny Mercer [‘I’m Building Up to An Awful Letdown’] which made ‘Hit Parade’ [chart] in 1935.”
“I’m Building up to an Awful Letdown” was the only song penned by Astaire that appeared on his 1952 album The Astaire Story. Featuring the quintet, led by Oscar Peterson, the album featured a collection of songs performed by Astaire throughout his career. It earned Astaire a posthumous Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1999, 12 years after his death.
I’m like Humpty Dumpty
Up on the garden wall
I’m riding high
And who can deny
That whatever goes up must fall
Poor old Humpty Dumpty,
He got the toughest break
And yet his fall
Was nothing at all
Like the tumble I’m gonna take
I’m building up to an awful letdown
By playing around with you
You’re breaking down my terrific buildup
By treating me as you do
2. “It’s Just Like Taking Candy from a Baby” (1940)
Written by Fred Astaire
Featuring Benny Goodman, “It’s Just Like Taking Candy from a Baby” is a song about a woman who has him wrapped around her fingers. Astaire continued writing throughout his career and had a lifelong ambition to be recognized more as a composer.
“I’d love to have been able to do more with my music, but I never had the time,” said Astaire. “I was always working on dance numbers. Year after year I kept doing that. Somehow or other I always blame myself, because I say, ‘Well, I could have found the time; why the hell didn’t I do it?'”
It was just like takin’ candy from a baby
‘Cause I couldn’t resist you from the very start
You had me around your little finger
No trouble at all for you to tiptoe in my heart
It’s the first time that I lost my head completely
Oh, you swept me off my feet, just one, two, three
It was just like takin’ candy from a baby
The way you stole my heart away from me
3. “If Swing Goes, I Go Too” (1944)
Written by Fred Astaire
Written by Fred Astaire, “If Swing Goes, I Go Too” was first recorded in 1945 with an orchestra under direction of Albert Sack. The song was originally written for the 1946 film Ziegfeld Follies, which also starred Astaire, Lucille Balle, Judy Garland, Lena Horne, Gene Kelly, and more.
“If Swing Goes, I Go Too” was ultimately cut from the film after World War II since the premise of the song was that swing being rationed—Some old fogey wants to ration swing. The rationing of things, such as food, shoes, and more, had ended with the war.
I’m all worried I’m upset
I just heard the worst news yet
Some old fogey wants to ration swing
Says your psyche won’t survive
If you dance to that jump and jive
I can’t help it if I shout and sing
They can take away my breakfast
They can take away my lunch
But there’s just one thing
That they can’t take
That’s the rhythm of the swing band bunch
4. “Life is Beautiful” (1976)
Written by Fred Astaire and Tommy Wolf
Astaire wrote two songs with composer and pianist Tommy Wolf, “Life is Beautiful” and “City of the Angels.” Both songs appeared on Astaire’s 1976 album Attitude Dancing. “Life is Beautiful,” which was used as the closing theme for The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, also made its way to Tony Bennett, who recorded as the the title track of his 1975 album.
When Astaire died in 1987 at the age of 88, Carson closed his 25th anniversary show with a clip of Astaire’s 1976 performance of the song on the show.
What to say
Where to start
I’ll just tell what’s in my heart
Life is beautiful
In every way
Life is lovely
As a spring bouquet
Since I fell in love with you
Life is like a dream
That has come true
For life is sunshine
Smiling brightly
On a summer day
Photo: Pictorial Parade/Archive Photos/Getty Images
