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Ask Me Again Gershwin Sheet Music

Ask Me Again

Written:
c 1930

Music by: George Gershwin

Words by: Ira Gershwin

Written for: undetermined
(See About Origins of the Vocal, below)

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On the Main Stage at Cafe Songbook

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video earlier starting another.)

Nancy La Mott

performing

"Ask Me Once more"

accompanied by
Christopher Marlowe on piano
from the anthology Ask Me Once more.
This track recorded at Atlantic Urban center Entertainment Studios, Atlantic City, NJ 1988.
More info on the album below.

More Performances of "Ask Me Over again"
in the Buffet Songbook
Tape/Video Cabinet
(Video credits)

Cafe Songbook Reading Room

"Ask Me Once more"

Critics Corner || Lyrics Lounge

Well-nigh the Origins of the Song



Howard Pollack

George Gershwin: His Life and Work
Berkeley: Univ. of California Press
2006

In Jan, 1988, Stephen Holden wrote in the New York Times, "Information technology's no wonder that a trove of musical theater manuscripts, including the largest collection of Gershwiniana to be found since George Gershwin's death, has caused ripples of apprehension e'er since information technology was discovered in a Secaucus, N.J., warehouse in 1982" by a young Michael Feinstein who was researching material for Ira Gershwin. Much of the Secaucus cache was written in the belatedly 1920s or early 1930s simply remained unpublished until April, 1991, when many of the newly found songs were included in the folio Rediscovered Gershwin. Ane of those songs "Ask Me Again," was, co-ordinate to Feinstein, considered by Ira Gershwin to be the best of the unpublished material. Ira more than or less remembered that the song was originally written for the 1930 bear witness Girl Crazy merely not used manifestly because in that location was also much competition in the show from a plethora of smashing songs. Gershwin biographer and critic Howard Pollack notes, however, that the melody's "nascent inspiration" preceded Girl Crazy being technically reminiscent of the Gershwins' somewhen aborted operetta E is West on which the creative work began in late 1928 and connected into 1929 before beingness abased. "Ask Me Again" was, even so, downwards simply not out. It was considered for only not used in The Goldwyn Follies, a picture show of 1938 which was the the final project on which George worked before his expiry in July, 1937. Howard Pollack writes, "Idea by Ira to be the finest of his unpublished songs, 'Ask Me Again' finally saw the low-cal of day [on Broadway] when Brian Mitchell introduced it in David Merrick's 1990 production of Oh, Kay" (Pollack, p. 450). In any case, the song was non recorded and no doubt never widely heard, until 1986, when Feinstein taught it to Rosemary Clooney who recorded it accompanied by Feinstein on her album Mostly Mercer. The Clooney recording appeared several years before Merrick'south higher up mentioned interpolations of the vocal into both his 1990 and 1991 revivals of the 1926 Gershwin show Oh, Kay!. Nancy Lamott's 1988 recording with accompaniment by Christopher Marlowe also preceded the Merrick revivals.
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Critics Corner
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Lyrics Lounge

1991 folio of
previously unpublished
Gershwin songs
available from

Ask Me Again by [Gershwin, George, Ira Gershwin]
digital sheet music
for "Enquire Me Again"
available from

Typically Gershwin lyrics begin with a verse , a brief introductory section that typically connects the song's refrain to the plot, characters or themes of the prove for which the song was written. "Ask Me Once more," for which there is no poetry, never made it into a testify until it was interpolated into the 1990 and 1991 revivals of the Gershwins' 1924 musical Oh, Kay! This was some sixty years later the Gershwins wrote the song and after both George and Ira had died. So it's non unreasonable to deduce they never wrote a verse because they didn't know where or how the song was going to exist used when they wrote it -- and weren't effectually when it finally was used.

The fundamental trope of Ira Gershwin'south lyric is the title expression "ask me again" which is not a literal request to hear a question asked over and over but rather a mode of satisfying the singer's relentless need to depict his feelings for his new love.

He is and so much moved past what his new love does to him that he wants to brand sure anybody, especially the person he is straight addressing, knows who she is and even more than what effect she has on him. And although he has difficulty containing himself on the bailiwick of her, he is apparently too reserved and/or well mannered (Note how Ira, at several points, prefaces his requests with "Please") to speak without being spoken to. The emotional predicament he finds himself in drives the lyric. He tries to extricate himself from the predicament not just by asking to be asked about her but past dictating questions that themselves contain the answers he wants to hear and which reveal his feelings:

Ask me again
Who'south the one I've begun to admire.
Ask me over again
Who'south the partner my heart pounded for.

He is devilishly clever in the way he phrases his questions then that they incorporate figures of spoken language that capture his emotional predicament.

Who is the who has me tied in a bow knot
So that I know non
Only where I'g at?

Another goal he hopes to achieve past asking for advice is to figure out how to untie the "bow knot" that is constricting his ability to explain how he has felt "from the start," how she has reduced him to having a "one runway heart and mind," how she is "the one he has looked high and depression for" and the one "whom he volition get for his whole life through." (Note the wonderful feminine rhyme between "go for" and "low for." But of course he is not really unable to inquire her these things, because the last two lines of the first refrain resolve for us, if we hadn't figured it out already, that he has all along been describing his predicament to none other than the object of his affection:

Please ask me once more --
Let me shout to the world:
Information technology's you.

By this point, halfway through the lyric, a certain tension is alleviated because everybody is in on it: He's speaking to his new love. The second refrain is generally an opportunity for the singer to continue to drive home his feelings for her (and to her) and for Ira to demonstrate the fecundity of his lyric-writing gift.

Who thrills me more the circus of Ringling?
Who keeps me tingling
From head to toe?

Lines such as these show how Ira can catechumen the merely sensational into the truly poetic and have his audience likewise as his character tingling from head to toe.

All examples from lyrics taken from
The Complete Lyrics of Ira Gershwin.


The canvas music for "Enquire Me Once more" was first published in 1991 in the page
Rediscovered Gershwin
.

The authoritative lyrics tin can also be establish in The Complete Lyrics of Ira Gershwin:

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Posted Comments on "Inquire Me Once more":

Posted past VocalDiva 10/24/2017:

YouTube has videos of "Ask Me Once again" by Michael Feinstein, Rosemary Clooney, Victoria Hart and Nancy La Mott too every bit some instrumental piano recordings. Feinstein discovered the "lost" song in 1983 in stash of Gershwin music found in a Secaucus, NJ warehouse.  Ira believed information technology was the all-time of their unpublished songs. It is believed that Rosemary Clooney was the showtime to record the song. I hope more information can be added soon every bit information technology is a really lovely song and deserves to be better known.

Cafe Songbook responds: Nosotros agree and will go to piece of work on "Enquire Me Again" soon. Besides, likewise the wonderful Songbook artists such every bit Rosemary Clooney and Nancy LaMott, scanning YouTube for "Ask Me Again," one comes beyond Leslie Sorci (c 2010) accompanied by Dean Burns performing "Ask Me Again," a version that is worth hearing:


Leslie Sorcie accompanied by Dean Burns c. 2010
perform "Ask Me Again."

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Credits

(this page)

Credits for Videomakers of videos used on this folio:

  • Rosemary Clooney and Michael Feinstein: NoMudinJoyville
  • Michael Feinstein from Overnice Work If You Can Get It: wrycker
  • Leslie Sorci: Martin Rojas Dietrich

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Whatsoever other images that appear on CafeSongbook.com pages are either in the public domain or appear through the specific permission of their owners. Such permission will exist acknowledged in this space on the page where the prototype is used.

For further information on Buffet Songbook policies with regard to the higher up matters, see our "About Buffet Songbook" folio (link at acme and bottom of every page).

The Cafe Songbook
Record/Video Cabinet:
Selected Recordings of


"Ask Me Again"

(All Record/Video Cabinet entries beneath
include a music-video
of this page's featured song.
The year given is for when the studio
track was originally laid downward
or when the alive performance was given.)

Performer/Recording Alphabetize
(*indicates accompanying music-video)

  • Rosemary Clooney (acc. by Michael Feinstein (1986)
  • Nancy LaMott (acc. by Christopher Marlowe (1988)
  • Michael Feinstein (1996)
  • Spider Saloff (1997)
  • D'Arcy (2008)
  • Victoria Hart (2008)
  • Louise Sorcie (c. 2010)

1986
Rosemary Clooney
(accompanied past Michael Feinstein)
anthology: Mostly Mercer

Notes: "This various-artists drove of specially recorded songs in small-ring arrangements does not pretend to feature Johnny Mercer's best or all-time-known songs, instead combining the well-known ('You Must Accept Been a Beautiful Baby,' 'Blues in the Nighttime') with many interesting obscurities. Nor, every bit the title indicates, is the album given over entirely to Mercer. At that place are 2 ringers, both debut recordings: 'Ask Me Once again,' a George and Ira Gershwin song discovered by Michael Feinstein, who accompanies Rosemary Clooney in performing it, and 'Fourth dimension You Onetime Gypsy Human being,' lyricist Eastward.Y. Harburg'south final song." ~ William Ruhlmann
(from the CD Universe page for this anthology).

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1988
Nancy LaMott and Christopher Marlowe
albums: Jazz City: Vocal Sessions,
Vol. 14
; and Enquire Me Once more

Notes: The track above is found on ii CDs (titles noted above). The track was recorded at Atlantic City Entertainment Studios, Atlantic Metropolis, NJ in 1988. As David Freidman in his liner notes for the posthumous Nancy LaMott anthology Ask Me Once more points out, the songs on this album were nerveless at the demand of listeners to the Jonathan Schwartz radio programs on which he played recordings of Nancy LaMott songs which had not been included on any of her albums made during her lifetime. "Nosotros tried," he wrote, to leave the songs equally they were originally sung. . . live in concert, live on the radio, and in modest studios in Atlantic Urban center and New York, . . ."
The other tracks on Enquire Me Again feature a who'south who of late twentieth century American jazz players accompanying LaMott who was able to attract the best to play backside her.

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1996
Michael Feinstein
album: Nice Work If Yous Can Become It
(Songs past the Gershwins)

Notes: Squeamish Work If Yous Can Get It: Songs by the Gershwins is Michael Feinstein's 2d all-Gershwin anthology. His outset, Pure Gershwin, was his best record, probably considering, as a erstwhile secretary to Ira Gershwin, he knew his way around the material. This time, Feinstein puts his extensive knowledge of the Gershwin catalogue to good use, unearthing lost songs -- 'Anything for You' and 'Will Yous Recall Me?' are given their first-ever recordings -- resurrecting original arrangements, and singing rarely used lyrics to favorites similar 'Someone to Watch over Me.' The album'south tour de force is the seven-and-a-half-minute 'Fascinating Rhythm (Medley),' which travels through time to trace the development of the song and its subsequent versions in successive musical styles. The effect is to demonstrate both the timelessness and the endless versatility of George Gershwin's music. All of this is far more elaborate than the pianoforte accessory on Pure Gershwin, and Feinstein has developed plenty as a singer to keep upwardly. The homo has the centre of a enquiry assistant, but few history lessons are this much fun. ~ William Ruhlmann at CD Universe page for this album. Recorded at Capitol Studios, Hollywood, released Feb 13, 1996 on the Atlantic characterization. Personnel: Michael Feinstein (pianoforte); Gene Merlino, Don Shelton , Med Flory, Sue Raney (vocals); Bill Watrous (trombone); Armen Guzelimian, Stan Freeman, Tom Ranier (pianoforte); Jeff Hamilton (drums).
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1997
Spider Saloff
album: The Retentivity of All That
(A Commemoration of Gershwin)

Notes: "Known for co-hosting the public radio program Words & Music and for her alive tributes to Tin Pan Aisle icon George Gershwin, Spider Saloff is a Chicago-based jazz vocalist with a clean, elementary, straightforward approach" (See AllMusic.com for complete commodity). Saloff is backed on this album past Harry Allen (Tenor Sax), Bradley Williams (piano), and John Whitfield (bass).
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2008
D'Arcy
anthology: Don't Argue Me In

Notes: "Making songs like conversation is what D\D'Arcy excels at, with natural phrasing. Her in-person recording brings out the one-to-one connectedness skill. it\'southward not about belting, sustaining notes, or high drama. she sings lightly, sometimes talking a line to put attention on an attitude or certain words....this is cabaret singing" [rob Lester ,\'cabaret scenes tracks\' 2008. (from CD Universe)

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2008
Victoria Hart
album: The Lost Gershwin

Notes: 2008 anthology from the California-born Jazz Pop vocalist joined by British string quartet Pavao. Following the discovery of rare Gershwin sail music in an attic - unopened since WWII - Victoria Hart and Pavao take recorded the results of their findings on this unique new anthology. Though George Gershwin was a prolific author, not all of his tunes became standards. This collection, including songs never before recorded shows there are still Gershwin gems waiting to be discovered. This is a collection of merely 12 of those fascinating songs, brought to life for a gimmicky audience by "George Clooney'due south singing waitress" Victoria Hart and Pavao. (From Amazon page for this album)
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Ask Me Again Gershwin Sheet Music

Source: http://greatamericansongbook.net/pages/songs/a/ask_me_again.html