"Stairway to Paradise": Song History, Commentary, Discography, Performances on Video

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(I'll build a) Stairway to Paradise
Written: 1922	Music by: George Gershwin	Words by: B. G. (Buddy) De Sylva and Arthur Francis (pseudonym for Ira Gershwin)	Written for: George White's Scandals (show, 1922)
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code (Please complete or pause one video before starting another.)	Artist performing "Stairway To Paradise" with Personnel/at (year) More Performances of "Stairway to Paradise" in the Cafe Songbook Record/Video Cabinet (Video credit)

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"Stairway to Paradise"

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About the Show George White's Scandals (1922) / Origins of the Song

Other songs written for George White's Scandals (1922) currently included in the Cafe Songbook Catalog of The Great American Songbook: none

For a complete listing of songs used in the original Broadway production of this revue, see IBDB song list.

Sheet Music Cover for "Nobody but You" (music George Gershwin, lyrics by Arthur Jackson and B. G. De Sylva) the only song from Gershwin's first Broadway score that still has a life today.

Edward Jablonski
Gershwin
A Biography,
New York: Doubleday, 1987 (paper-bound Ed. shown)

Ira Gershwin,
Lyrics on Several Occasions
New York: Limelight Editions,1997 (originally published by Knoph, 1959)

"Stairway to Paradise" (often referred to by the first line of its refrain, "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise" instead of its proper title) was written for the 1922 edition of the musical revue George White's Scandals, which opened on Broadway, August 28, 1922, and closed, November 11, of the same year, running for eighty-nine performances. At this point in his career, George Gershwin had had his initiation into the life of a Broadway songwriter as well as into the life of songwriting fame. The former came through writing some individual songs that were interpolated into Broadway productions as well as his first entire score for a Broadway show, the musical La La Lucille that opened on Broadway in May, 1919. In the same year he was hired by George White to write the music for the first edition of his revue, Scandals, which began in 1919 running every year through 1924, a series of shows intended to rival Florenz Ziegfeld's Follies. The fame also came in 1919, when Gershwin wrote the music for the megahit "Swanee." Gershwin's biographer Edward Jablonski writes, "So it was that the 'Swanee' explosion found him with a fairly well-rounded education in the ways and mores of the music business and the musical theater . . . , afforded him the chance to pick and choose [his project, and made him] ready for Broadway" (Jablonski, p. 41).

Near the beginning of his career as a lyricist, Ira Gershwin, George's older brother, more often than not, chose to write under a pseudonym, most commonly Arthur Fancis. "Arthur" after another brother and "Francis," after their sister. In his book Lyrics on Several Occasions, Ira, who shared lyrics credit for "Stairway to Paradise" (and for the 1922 Scandals as a whole) with B.G. De Sylva, relates the back story of "Stairway," a song the lyric of which extolls dancing.

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Credits

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sheet music cover: "Nobody but You" (from La La Lucille): Wikipedia Commons/Public Domain

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The Cafe Songbook
Record/Video Cabinet:
Selected Recordings for

"Stairway to Paradise"

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