A Foggy Day

George and Ira Gershwin wrote this for Fred Astaire to sing in A Damsel in Distress in 1937, and it has been in every singer's book since. The A Foggy Day chords and the backing track here can be taken at any tempo and moved to any key.

Who wrote "A Foggy Day"

The music is George Gershwin's, the lyric Ira Gershwin's, and the full title on the sheet is "A Foggy Day (In London Town)" — the fog being the coal smoke that settled over the city in those years. It was written in 1937 for the RKO film A Damsel in Distress, in which Astaire introduced it. George Gershwin died in July of that year, before the picture reached cinemas in November. Astaire recorded it commercially on 17 October 1937 and Brunswick released it the following month; Vincent Lopez and his orchestra had it on record earlier the same year. It is still under copyright.

Recordings that made it a standard

• Fred Astaire, single (Brunswick, 1937) — the original, and the version that set the phrasing. Astaire sings it conversationally and does not dwell on the long notes, which is the opposite of what most singers do with it now.
• Frank Sinatra, Songs for Young Lovers (1953) — the small-group Capitol record where Sinatra began treating standards as a repertoire rather than as hits. He takes the tune slowly and in front of the beat.
• Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald, Ella and Louis (1956) — Oscar Peterson's quartet underneath, the two voices alternating, and nobody hurrying. The best-loved of all the readings.
• Billie Holiday, Songs for Distingué Lovers (1957) — late Holiday with Ben Webster and Harry Edison, a small band at a walking tempo. The voice is worn and the timing is extraordinary.