It's Magic

Written: 1948

Music by: Jule Styne

Words by: Sammy Cahn

Written for:
Romance on the High Seas
(movie, 1948)

On the Main Stage at Cafe Songbook

Steve Tyrell

performing

"It's Magic"

on the promotional video for his album
The Songs of Sammy Cahn, 2013.

More Performances of "It's Magic"
in the Cafe Songbook Record/Video Cabinet
(Video credit )

Cafe Songbook Reading Room

"It's Magic"

Critics Corner || Lyrics Lounge

In 1948, Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn were signed by the Hungarian director Michael Curtiz at Warner Brothers to do the score for the movie Romance on the High Seas, which had a screenplay by the Epstein Brothers, perhaps most well-known now for writing the screenplay for Casablanca a few years before this. Curtiz had wanted Judy Garland for the lead but she was unavailable as was his second choice, Betty Hutton. The idea was floated to audition Betty's sister Marion, a very good band singer as well as Janis Paige. Cahn suggested that if they were going to lower their sites from stars like Garland and Betty Hutton to a band singer, they should look at Doris Day who was singing with the Les Brown band and had a hit with "Sentimental Journey." On the day they screened the tests, writes Cahn in his autobiography, "first came Marion Hutton; she was not earth shaking. Then came Janis Paige--by comparison, excellent. Then came Doris Day--and the projection room, when they ran the film, exploded." Of the three songs Day sang in her audition, the one that won her the day was "it's Magic," which Cahn had prompted her to learn. Within three years, Cahn notes, Doris Day was "queen of the Warners lot." (I Should Care, p. 101, hard-bound edition)

The birth of "It's Magic" occurred, again according to Cahn, when he and Styne were checking out the script for the movie.

As I was reading [the script, Jule was fooling around at the piano with this waltz and then this tango he always warmed up with. We needed a song for a scene in which Jack Carson is to take Doris Day to a night club in Cuba. Suddenly I began to listen to the tango and I said: "What's that?" and Jule said: "Just something I've been playing for two years," and I said: "Play it again, slowly." And he did. "Once more, slower." He did, and we wrote "It's Magic." (I Should Care, p. 101, hard-bound edition)

Editor's note: Cahn's memory may be putting the cart before the horse here because in another place he suggests that "It's Magic" was written before Day got the part, that in fact she used it, at his behest, to audition for the role. Whichever account is accurate, it doesn't change the importance of the role that "It's Magic" played in getting Day started in the movies.

Romance on the High Seas is one of those comedies based on confusion of identities. Peter Virgil (Jack Carson) a private detective has been hired by Michael Kent (Don DeFore) to follow his wife, whom he suspects of infidelity, because she is supposedly going off on a cruise to Rio. His wife, Elvira Kent (Janis Paige), also suspects her husband of less than above board behavior, so she secretly stays at home in New York to keep an eye on him. In her place on the cruise, she sends would-be club singer Georgia Garrett (Doris Day). Of course, Virgil winds up following Garrett believing she is Mrs. Kent. And, also of course, Virgil falls in love with Garrett and she with him in the process. Much comic sturm und drang takes place before everything gets fixed.

"It's Magic" is sung three times during the film (and used as a background theme on several other occasions). The first time "It's Magic" is heard it's sung in Spanish by a group of Cuban guitarist-singers during a cruise layover in Havana. In the same scene, Garrett (Day), conveniently having been provided with a copy of the English lyrics, joins them, singing the song to Virgil (Carson). The song lives up to its title working its magic on both of them as they begin to fall for each other. Garrett reprises the song on the beach in Rio with Virgil accompanying her on guitar. (Who knew that Jack Carson played guitar?) By this time sparks have begun to fly between the two, but matters are far from settled because both are concealing their real identities form each other. All is not well until the finale during which Garrett/Day yet again sings "It's Magic," this time accompanied by a full orchestra and Oscar Lazaar (Oscar Levant) on piano in a fancy Rio club. This is the climax of the film and serves to start Garrett off on an undoubtedly brilliant singing career while at the same time freeing the lovers from their misconceptions about each other so they can live happily ever after. It's magic alright, Hollywood magic.

The Finale of Romance on the High Seas: The plot complications and mistaken identities are resolved as Elvira Kent (Janis Paige) introduces Georgia Garrett (Doris Day) to sing "It's Magic."

"It's Magic" was nominated for the Academy Award for best song in a 1948 movie, but the Oscar went to "Buttons and Bows" by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans for the move The Paleface.

Neverteless, the song was so successful that when Romance on the High Seas was released in Great Britain, riding on the crest of the song's wave of popularity, it bore the title It's Magic.

As is suggested above, the beginning of Doris Day's career, especially in movies, is tied very closely to "It's Magic." Not only did it help her land her first starring role, but, of course, she wound up singing the song in the film and having a hit record of it too boot.

Gerald Mast comments that Day's "song style became her screen style--the sweet ingenue with a touch of the tomboy, the girl next door who was one of the fellas (with a hairstyle to match)." The stardom she achieved at Warner Bros. derived both from the Michael Curtiz musicals in which she acted and the Styne-Cahn songs that she sang in them, songs "which projected both sides of her personality: the breathily romantic, 'It's Magic,' and its sassy reversal, 'Put 'Em in a Box, Tie 'Em with a Ribbon'." (Mast, p. 221). These two songs, both from Romance on the High Seas were in fact released as the A and B sides of the same Columbia 78 RPM record.

The selection of recordings of "It's Magic" on this page (both in the Cafe Songbook Record/Video Cabinet and the list of charted versions) reveal an evolution from the pop ballad style of Doris Day, Dick Haymes, Gordon MacRae, Tony Martin and Vic Damone that predominated in 1948, the year the song was introduced by Day, to the jazz inflected interpretations of Sarah Vaughan, Beverly Kenney, Keely Smith, Dinah Washington, Sue Raney, Billy Valentine and Diane Schuur.

Sarah Vaughan is the pioneer here with a recording that came out in the same year, 1948, the song was introduced by Day. Keely Smith actually presents a straight ballad version on her first run through and then swings it on the repeat. All the others, whether giving us ballad tempo or up-tempo, underpin the song with a jazz base both in the vocal renderings and the instrumental accompaniments. A straight jazz instrumental comes from Sonny Stitt/Barry Harris Quartet.

Click here to read the lyrics for "It's Magic" as sung by Frank Sinatra. The track can be found at iTunes on the album It's Magic.

Sinatra's version does not include the verse. In fact, none of the recordings available on this page (or just about anywhere) include it, not even Doris Day's in the movie. The role of the verse is almost always to introduce the main theme of the song as expressed in the refrain. Cahn's idea in the verse is to contrast what might be called the conventional magic of "Houdini and the rest" to the magic the singer experiences in the presence of his or her love: "you sigh, the song begins / You speak and I hear violins, / It's magic." The singer is willing to put his or her love "up against the best of them," but finally knows, "the magic is my love for you."

The complete, authoritative lyrics for "It's Magic"
can be found in:

Reading Lyrics, Edited and with an Introduction by Robert Gottlieb and Robert Kimball, New York: Pantheon Books, 2000.

Click here to read Cafe Songbook lyrics policy.

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Credits

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The Cafe Songbook
Record/Video Cabinet:
Selected Recordings of

"It's Magic"

1947-48
Doris Day
album: Golden Girl (The Columbia Recordings 1944-1966)

same track as on the above referenced album

Notes: Released as a celebration of Doris Day's three decades with Columbia Records, Golden Girl: Columbia Recordings 1944-1966 is a definitive portrait of Day at the peak of her career. Over the course of two discs and 48 songs, all of her big hits — including "Sentimental Journey" and "Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)" — are featured, along with selected album tracks, duets, and five previously unreleased tracks. This may be a little too comprehensive for the average fan just looking for the hits, but for any serious fan, this is essential.
(from iTunes review)
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1948
Dick Haymes
album: The Best of

same track as on the above referenced album

Notes: Thirty-nine tracks of Haymes recordings including 12 songs from the classic capital 1955 LP Rain Or Shine including the track from the video above the recording that reached # nine on the charts in '48.
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1948
Sarah Vaughan
album: Complete Musicraft Master Takes

same track as on the above referenced album

Amazon

iTunes

Notes: Complete Musicraft Mater Tapes: 2001 CD including the first recording sessions for the legendary Musicraft label in the late forties. Includes the complete master takes of the session made for Columbia with a small studio group including Miles Davis, Al Casey, Dizzy Gillespie, Kenny Clarke, Freddie Green, Jimmy Smith, Barry Galbraith, Teddy Wilson, Johnny Mandel, Al Porcino, and others. (contains the track that reached number 11 on the charts in '48)
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1958
Beverly Kenney
album: Beverly Kenney
Sings for Playboys

same track as on the above referenced album

Notes: "To this day, jazz enthusiasts still ask amongst themselves: why did she do it? It's a question that we still don't have a complete answer to. But what we do have is a body of recordings that provide a whole new way to hear the vocal jazz genre. And of Beverly's six LP's, the true masterpiece is "Beverly Kenney Sings for Playboys" (1958), an almost perfect album that everyone who loves Vintage music needs to own" (from David Gasten, Amazon Customer Reviewer).
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1959
Dinah Washington
album: What A Difference
a Day Makes

same track as on the above referenced album

Notes: "Dinah Washington had long been known as the Queen of the Blues when she took steps toward the mainstream in the late '50s. What a Diff'rence a Day Makes not only placed the great singer firmly on the pop charts and permanently associated her with the near-title song, it proved again that her enormous vocal power and emotion were all but impossible to fence in." (from iTunes review )
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1959
Keely Smith
album: Swingin' Pretty

same track as on the above referenced album

2006
Sue Raney
album: A Tribute To Doris Day: Heart's Desire

Amazon

iTunes

Notes: "So now we have the long-awaited tribute to Doris Day. This album is nothing short of a masterpiece and a loving tribute to Doris Day it truly is. You would never know Sue is now singing in her sixties. I have always disliked Que Sera, Sera but Sue makes this song so compelling that I have listened to it over and over again. Every cut on this album is a showpiece to this wonderful singer's magnificent ability. Perhaps with this album, Sue Raney will finally receive the recognition she so richly deserves" (from Amazon customer reviewer Daniel Pure).
Performance on video currently unavailable.
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2006
Billy Valentine
album: Travelin' Light

same track as on the above referenced album

Amazon

iTunes

Notes: Billy Valentine is a Los Angeles based singer whose repertoire includes a siginificant contribution to the contemporary interpretation of The Songbook -- worth a listen.

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2008
Diane Schuur
album: Some Other Time

same track as on the above referenced album

Notes: This album features songs Diane Schuur grew up listening to: timeless tunes by George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Rogers and Hammerstein, etc. --standards inflected with her particular jazz sensibility.

2013
Steve Tyrell
album: It's Magic
The Songs of Sammy Cahn

Watch video performanc on the
Cafe Songbook Main Stage above.

Amazon

iTunes

Notes: "Vocalist Steve Tyrell began his salute to the great American songbook with the 1999 release A New Standard. The tribute continues with It's Magic: The Songs of Sammy Cahn as Tyrell explores 13 of his favorite songs written by the legendary composer. In a roundabout way, this set not only pays tribute to Sammy Cahn, but also his collaborators. Gene De Paul is musically acknowledged with the inclusion "Teach Me Tonight," a song associated with Frank Sinatra. Seven of the tracks were co-written with Jimmy Van Heusen and have become iconic songbook standards including "The Second Time Around," "Call Me Irresponsible," and "Ain't That a Kick in the Head." They also wrote several tunes made popular by Sinatra: "Come Fly with Me," "The Tender Trap," and "All the Way." Cahn's partnership with Jule Styne is also highlighted with "I Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out to Dry," "It's Been a Long, Long Time," "Saturday Night (Is the Loneliest Night of the Week)," and "I Fall in Love Too Easily." The 2013 release of It's Magic: The Songs of Sammy Cahn coincides with the modern crooner's extended New York gig, succeeding the late vocalist Bobby Short at the Café Carlyle, where the great American songbook has been celebrated for several decades" Al Campbell at CD Universe.
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