Musical Analysis of Someone to Watch Over Me by Gershwin Essay

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Gershwin/Someone to Watch

"Someone to Watch over Me" ("STWOM") was featured in a long-running musical called Oh Kay!, written by George and IRA Gershwin, that made its world debut on Broadway's Imperial Theater. The date was November 8, 1926. The musical enjoyed great success, even including a Broadway revival in 1990. STWOM, the best-known song from the musical, was a hit three times the following year, starting with Oh Kay's star Gertrude Lawrence's recording, which was on the charts for eleven weeks. Gershwin himself released a version. George Olsen and His Orchestra had a hit with an uptempo version; interestingly, the Gershwin brothers originally intended the song to be an upbeat rhythm piece. George experimented with tempo one day and the brothers quickly realized it had more potential as a wistful, slower piece (McElrath.). Of course they were right. The purpose of this paper is to examine the score's refrain in detail, reflecting on its form, melody, harmony, rhythm and texture, and how these musical elements work with the song's lyrics.

Music of the 20th century was characterized by "entirely new approaches to the organization of pitch and rhythm and a vast expansion in the vocabulary of sounds" (Kamien 1998, p. 282). For hundreds of years, musical structure was governed by certain general principles, but these fell away as modern composers, like Gershwin, played with audience expectations. For example, in earlier music, a listener expected that a dominant chord would be resolved with a tonic chord immediately following. Gershwin eschewed musical convention and as a result his pieces seem as fresh and modern as when they were written close to a century ago.

The refrain of STWOM begins at Bar 29. The melody is in Eb Major, the same as the opening of the piece.

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The form of the refrain is AABA. The melody begins on beat 2 and ascends to the first beat and a half of the next measure, Bar 30, before beginning its descent. The melodic ascent is rapid, from Eb to F, G, then Bb, C, Eb, and high F. The descent is more gradual, using repeated notes, as Gershwin often liked to do. "Repeated notes build melodic tension while emphasizing rhythm and holding the door open for harmonic ingenuity" (McElrath). He repeats the notes' descending pattern, with F-F-Eb-D in Bar 30, Eb-Eb-D-C in Bar 31, then D-D-C-Bb in Bar 32. It is an effective means to communicate the emotion behind the lyrics. The melody builds towards the word "longing' which is given emphasis by being sung on the highest notes in the phrase. The rhythm, too, gives emphasis to the lyrics. The beat is syncopated and the word "longing" is made more wistful with an eighth note on the first syllable and a quarter note on the second syllable, just the opposite of what one might expect. In Bars 30, 31, and 32, Gershwin used half notes at the end of the measures, coinciding with the words "see," "he," and "be." The half notes let the singer draw out those words, emphasizing the rhyme.

In Bar 33, Gershwin uses the words that give the song its name. He adds tension in the segue from Bar 32, which ends with a half note on Bb. There is a quarter rest beginning Bar 33, an effective way to make the listener wait for just a moment to find out who the "someone" is -- someone who'll watch over [the….....

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