(1926), with the part originally sung on Broadway by English actress Gertrude Lawrence while holding a rag doll in a sentimental solo scene.

as a "fast and jazzy" up-tempo rhythm tune[8][9] – marked scherzando (playful) in the sheet music[7] – but in the 1930s and 1940s it was recorded by singers in a slower ballad form, which became the standard.

Gershwin said he found the doll in a toy shop in Philadelphia, where the play was in development, and he gave it to Lawrence to use as a prop in the scene, to increase the sense of her character's vulnerability.

[13] "Someone to Watch Over Me" was notably covered by Ella Fitzgerald (1950 and 1959), Sarah Vaughan (1957), Dakota Staton (1960), Barbra Streisand (1965), Ray Charles (1969), Willie Nelson (1978), Sinéad O'Connor (1992), Rickie Lee Jones (2000), Elton John (2002) and Amy Winehouse (2008).

Nelson Riddle arranged two lush orchestral versions, one backing Keely Smith in 1959 on Swingin' Pretty, and the other for Linda Ronstadt in 1983 on What's New – the latter album winning a Grammy Award.