Welcome to

Cafe Songbook

Internet Home of the
Songs, Songwriters and Performers of

The Great American Songbook

Madison Square logo, top of page cafe songbook sign for logo

Search Tips: 1) Click "Find on This Page" button to activate page search box. 2) When searching for a name (e.g. a songwriter), enter last name only. 3) When searching for a song title on the catalog page, omit an initial "The" or "A". 4) more search tips.
Portions of this page have not yet been completed. Thank you for your patience.

I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm

Written: 1936

Words and Music by: Irving Berlin

Written for: On the Avenue
(movie, 1937)

Page Menu
Main Stage || Record/Video Cabinet || Reading Room || Posted Comments || Credits

On the Main Stage at Cafe Songbook


(Please complete or pause one
video before starting another.)

Judy Garland
with
Count Basie
and His Orchestra

performing

"I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm"

on 'The Judy Garland Show, taped July 7, 1963.


More Performances of "I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm"
in the Cafe Songbook Record/Video Cabinet
(Video credit )

 

Cafe Songbook Reading Room

"I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm"

Critics Corner || Lyrics Lounge

About the Movie On the Avenue / Origins of the Song

Other songs written for the movie On the Avenue currently included in the Cafe Songbook Catalog of The Great American Songbook: none

 

For a complete list of songs in this movie, see the IMDB soundtrack.

On the Avenue is a "backstager," that is a show or movie in which the plot takes place behind the scenes of a show or movie that is being created or performed during the course of the production. In the movie On the Avenue, Gary Blake (Dick Powell) plays the leading man in a musical revue about Park Avenue types. The revue, a series of sketches mostly poking fun at Park Avenue life, bears the same title as the movie itself, On the Avenue. All of the sketches are built around a Berlin song.

Meanwhile backstage, Blake's is having a relationship with his leading lady, Mona Merrick (Alice Faye). In one of the sketches, they satirize the richest man in New York Commodore Caraway (George Barbier) and his daughter Mimi Caraway (Madeleine Carroll) who both just happen to be in the audience on opening night (arriving late, of course). Both father and daughter are offended by the their portraya by Blake and Merrick and walk out. All of this serves to initiate a battle between Blake and the offended Mimi. The remainder of the film alternates between the live sketches in the revue and "backstage" scenes about their conflict (which, no surprise, turns into a romance).

The first time we come across "I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm" is over the opening credits as part of a medley or overture. Next, the song is sung as the centerpiece of a sketch from the revue. Gary Blake plays a young, Park Avenue chap being counseled by his butler to bundle up before he goes out into the frigid Park Avenue winter. Blake informs the butler he doesn't need the proffered wraps because he has his love to keep him warm. The sketch segues from just Powell and his butler on stage to a string of chorus girls in mink more or less offering their wamth, and finally to Powell and Alice Faye finishing up the song as a duet.


Dick Powell singing "I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm"
in a recording (c. 1937) without the butler or Alice Faye but with an otherwise very similar arrangement to the on-screen version.

Other sketches from On the Avenue are based on less well known but terrific Berlin songs such as "He Ain't Got Rhythm" featuring The Ritz Brothers and "The Girl on the Police Gazette," neither of which are currently included in the Cafe Songbook Catalog of The Great American Songbook.


The Ritz Brothers sing and dance to Berlin's "He Ain't Got Rhythm," a sketch from On the Avenue based on the idea that long-haired scientists may be very smart when it comes to astronomy and such but it won't get them far in other endeavors such as dancing Cheek to Cheek (a reference to another Berlin songs from his score for Top Hat from 1935, two years before On the Avenue) -- because they "ain't got rhythm."

album cover: Irving Berlin's "On the Avenue"
soundtrack from
Iriving Berlin's
On the Avenue
Also on iTunes

Irving Berlin's
On the Avenue
DVD
back to top of page
Critics Corner
  (This section is currently in preparation.)
   
   
   
   
back to top of page
Lyrics Lounge

(This section is currently in preparation.)

Click here to read Cafe Songbook lyrics policy.

back to top of page

Visitor Comments

Submit comments on songs, songwriters, performers, etc.
Feel free to suggest an addition or correction.
Please read our Comments Guidelines before making a submission.
(Posting of comments is subject to the guidelines.
Not all comments will be posted.)

To submit a comment, click here.

Posted Comments on "I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm":

 

No comments yet posted

back to top of page

Credits

(this page)

 

Credits for Videomakers of custom videos used on this page:

Borrowed material (text): The sources of all quoted and paraphrased text are cited. Such content is used under the rules of fair use to further the educational objectives of CafeSongbook.com. CafeSongbook.com makes no claims to rights of any kind in this content or the sources from which it comes.

 

Borrowed material (images): Images of CD, DVD, book and similar product covers are used courtesy of either Amazon.com or iTunes/LinkShare with which CafeSongbook.com maintains an affiliate status. All such images are linked to the source from which they came (i.e. either iTunes/LinkShare or Amazon.com).

 

Any 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 be acknowledged in this space on the page where the image is used.

 

For further information on Cafe Songbook policies with regard to the above matters, see our "About Cafe Songbook" page (link at top and bottom of every page).

This section is currently incomplete.

The Cafe Songbook
Record/Video Cabinet:
Selected Recordings of

"I've Got My Love
To Keep Me Warm"


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

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

  • Performer 1 (year)
  • Performer 2 (year)

Year
Artist
album: title

Music-Video

Amazon iTunes

Notes:
(Please complete or pause one
video before starting another.)

back to top of page

Year
Artist
album: title

Music-Video

Amazon iTunes

Notes:
(Please complete or pause one
video before starting another.)

back to top of page

Year
Artist
album: title

Music-Video

Amazon iTunes

Notes:
(Please complete or pause one
video before starting another.)

back to top of page

Year
Artist
album: title

Amazon iTunes

Music-Video:

Notes:
(Please complete or pause one
video before starting another.)

back to top of page

Year
Artist
album: title

Music-Video

Amazon iTunes

Notes:
(Please complete or pause one
video before starting another.)

back to top of page

Year
Artist
album: title

Music-Video

Amazon iTunes

Notes:
(Please complete or pause one
video before starting another.)

back to top of page

Year
Artist
album: title

Music-Video

Amazon iTunes

Notes:
(Please complete or pause one
video before starting another.)

back to top of page

Year
Artist
album: title

Music-Video

Amazon iTunes

Notes:
(Please complete or pause one
video before starting another.)

back to top of page
back to top of page