They Didn't Believe Me

By Jerome Kern and Herbert Reynolds

1914

One of the most influential songs in the history of popular music, "They Didn't Believe Me" helped usher in a new era in musical comedy, and marked a significant break from the classical European songwriting tradition, making way for what became known as the Great American Songbook. When producer Charles Frohman was importing the successful London musical The Girl from Utah to the Broadway stage, he brought in the unknown Kern and Reynolds to punch it up with a few distinctly American numbers. This particular song helped make Kern into the first breakout star songwriter of the modern era. The composition, introduced on stage by Julia Sanderson and Donald Brian (pictured), featured plain, everyday language, as opposed to the flowery prose of previous love ballads; it also departed from the European waltz style, embracing the syncopation and ragtime flavor that was all the rage in American dance halls. It would have a profound impact on Broadway love ballads for the next half-century.

Lyrics:

Got the cutest little way
Like to watch you all the day
And it certainly seems fine
Just to think that you'll be mine
When I see your pretty smile
Makes the living worth the while
So I've got to run around
Telling people what I've found

And when I told them how beautiful you are
They didn't believe me, they didn't believe me
Your lips, your eyes, your cheeks, your hair
Are in a class beyond compare
You're the loveliest girl that one could see
And when I tell them
And I certainly am goin' to tell them
That I'm the man whose wife one day you'll be
They'll never believe me, they'll never believe me
That from this great big world you've chosen me

Don't know how it happened quite
May have been the summer night
May have been; well, who can say?
Things just happen any way
All I know is I said "yes"
Hesitating more or less
And you kissed me where I stood
Just like any fellow would

And when I told them how wonderful you are
They didn't believe me, they didn't believe me
Your lips, your eyes, your curly hair
Are in a class beyond compare
You're the loveliest thing that one could see
And when I tell them
And I certainly am goin' to tell them
That I'm the girl whose boy one day you'll be
They'll never believe me, they'll never believe me
That from this great big world you've chosen me

Recorded By:

Frank Sinatra
Johnny Hartman
Bing Crosby
George Sanders
Harry Belafonte