Pick Yourself Up

Dorothy Fields was best known as a lyricist, one of the few women who played a central role in the great period of American popular song from 1920 to 1960. Fields first became prominent writing the lyrics for Cotton Club shows in Harlem in the late 1920s and 1930s, and her most successful collaboration was with the great songwriter Jerome Kern. Her role as a music creator in a world dominated by men makes a fascinating and unusual story- with particular interest for woman today. Dorothy Fields first became prominent writing the lyrics for Cotton Club shows in Harlem in the late 1920s and 1930s, which included such songs as "I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby," and "On the Sunny Side of the Street." Her most successful collaboration was with the great songwriter Jerome Kern on three 1930s films, including the incomparable Swing Time with Rogers and Astaire, which produced such classic songs as "The Way You Look Tonight" and "A Fine Romance." Fields also collaborated with such prominent composers as Sigmund Romberg, Fritz Kreisler, Harold Arlen, Burton Lane, Arthur Schwartz, and Cy Coleman. Her lyrics were colloquial and urbane, sometimes slangy and sometimes sensuous. Her role as a music creator in a world dominated by men makes a fascinating and unusual story- with particular interest for woman today. Greenspan further discusses Fields in relation to other women songwriters and lyricists of the time.