A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody

[1] The later verses from the original 1919 stage show were patter lyrics by Berlin to the air of classical tunes; this was a common Tin Pan Alley trick.

[5][7][8] In the 1936 film The Great Ziegfeld, the song was the centerpiece musical number performed on a huge set containing a spiral staircase, which has been compared to a wedding cake[9][10] or "giant meringue".

[11] The scene reworked the original stage number on a far grander scale, with many dancers in various period costumes and a wide array of classical music references.

[15] In 1963, Tom Prideaux wrote in Life magazine that the song "has been played ever since [1919] for God knows how many beauty contests, debutante cotillions and strip-tease acts.

Jazz versions have been recorded by musicians including Paul Whiteman,[17] Louis Armstrong,[18] Toots Thielemans, Eddie Heywood,[19] Artie Shaw, George Shearing,[19] Django Reinhardt, Mose Allison, Earl Hines, Coleman Hawkins and Don Byas.

"[1] Jeffrey Magee in 2012 argues for a reappraisal in the light of the rediscovered classical verses, writing that "a scene usually understood as an earnest hymn to feminine pulchritude had an unmistakably comic element".

[23] In the 1960s Mad magazine published a collection of parody lyrics of well-known songs, including "Louella Schwartz Describes Her Malady"; in Irving Berlin et al. v. E.C.

In fact, since the musical is supposed to be set on a former theater (based on the Ziegfeld Follies), some of the songs of the show are pastiches of tunes from this same time, written by such composers as Berlin himself, Richard Rodgers, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Sigmund Romberg and others.