My Heart Stood Still

About My Heart Stood Still

"My Heart Stood Still" is a 1927 popular song composed by Richard Rodgers, with lyrics by Lorenz Hart. It was written for the Charles Cochran revue One Dam Thing after Another which opened in London at the London Pavilion on May 19, 1927. The show starred Jessie Matthews, Douglas Byng, Lance Lister, Richard Dolman and ran for 237 performances. In March of 1927, Rogers and Hart had traveled to Paris from London to meet the with the arranger Robert Russell Bennett, also an American, to try to persuade him to orchestrate the songs for their upcoming London revue, One Dam' Thing After Another. On their way back to Paris from a sightseeing expedition to Versailles, a truck came within a hair of demolishing the cab the two song writers, along with their two female companions, were riding in. As the truck rattled by, one of the young women cried out in apparent fright, “Oh! My heart stood still!” Without losing a beat, Hart, apparently unaffected by what must have been a nerve jangling moment, instantly urged the unfailingly conscientious Rodgers to make a note of her exclamation as a potential song title. Hart's partner faithfully jotted it down in his address book and upon coming across the note, only after they had returned to London, proceeded to construct a melody. When Rodgers played it for Hart, the lyricist loved the tune but claimed no recollection of the precipitating incident. Still, within no time at all, he produced the lyric for the now classic song. Rodgers and Hart later had to buy back the rights from Cochran when they wanted the song for the musical A Connecticut Yankee (1927), where it was introduced by Constance Carpenter and William Gaxton. more »