I Won't Dance
"I Won't Dance" is a jazz standard song with music by Jerome Kern, that has had two different sets of lyrics, the first written by Oscar Hammerstein II and Otto Harbach in 1934, the second written by Dorothy Fields (though Jimmy McHugh was also credited) in 1935. The two sets of lyrics share little but the common refrain of "I won't dance". The second set of lyrics is the much better known one, and the song in this form has been covered by many artists.

Kern, Hammerstein and Harbach originally wrote "I Won't Dance" for the 1934 London musical "Three Sisters". However, "Three Sisters" flopped and was quickly forgotten.

The next year, Fields was hired to help with the music for a film version of the 1933 Kern-Harbach musical "Roberta". The writing team decided to make use of "I Won't Dance" for the film, also named "Roberta". However, Fields rewrote nearly all of the lyrics, making the song more playful and suggestive by having the narrator refuse to dance because "I know that music leads the way to romance". The song became such a hit, largely due to the fact that it was performed by Fred Astaire, that it is now included in all stage revivals and recordings of "Roberta".
Q591990
jazz standard
Concept
Q313270
Jerome Kern
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Q319693
Oscar Hammerstein II
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Q1231720
Otto Harbach
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Q435241
Dorothy Fields
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Q1283031
Jimmy McHugh
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Q7797808
Three Sisters
MEDIA
Q13406117
Roberta
MEDIA
Q1862822
Roberta
MEDIA
Q100937
Fred Astaire
PER
Q5979971
I Won't Dance
MEDIA
Q5979971
I Won't Dance
MEDIA
Q5979971
I Won't Dance
MEDIA
1934-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1934
DATE
1935-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1935
DATE
1934-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1934
DATE
1933-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1933
DATE
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