A Kiss To Build a Dream On

Written: 1935 (current title and revised lyric, 1951)

Music by: Harry Ruby

Words by: Bert Kalmar
and Oscar Hammerstein

Written for: A Night at the Opera
(movie, 1935 -- song cut from movie, later used in the movie The Strip, 1951)

On the Main Stage at Cafe Songbook

Wesla Whitfield

performing live

"A Kiss To Build a Dream On"

with Mike Greensill, piano, on Charles Grodin's New York,
1995 (Wesla includes the verse in this performance.)

Wesla Whitfield recorded "A Kiss to Build a Dream On" on the album Nice Work (1995)

Amazon

More Performances of "A Kiss To Build a Dream on"
in the Cafe Songbook Record/Video Cabinet
(Video credit)

Cafe Songbook Reading Room

"A Kiss To Build a Dream On"

Critics Corner || Lyrics Lounge

According to Thomas Hischak in his Tin Pan Alley Song Encylopedia, Harry Ruby and Bert Kalmar wrote a song titled "Moonlight on the Meadow" in 1935 for the Marx Brothers movie A Night at the Opera, but it was not used. The songwriters, who after many tries were unable to interest a publisher in the song, showed it to Oscar Hammerstein II, who liked the melody, took an interest and suggested a new title as well as some changes in the lyrics. The song became "A Kiss To Build a Dream On," which was finally introduced by Kay Brown and Louis Armstrong in the 1951 movie The Strip.

Amy Asch in The Complete Lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein II tells the story a bit differently. She indicates that Ruby, Kalmar and Hammerstein collaborated on the song originally, but after being dropped from A Night at the Opera it lay in storage at MGM until Abe Olman, an MGM executive, rescued it in 1949, which led to its introduction in The Strip two years later.

The Library of Congress catalog of copyright entries supports Asch's contention that Hammerstein was involved in the original composition of 1935: "Moonlight on the meadow; w and m Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby and Oscar Hammerstein II. © 1 c. Oct. 19, 1935; . . . Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer co., New York."

In any case, it was nominated for the Academy Award for best song for 1951 but lost to the Hoagy Carmichael - Johnny Mercer song "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening."

Click here to read the lyrics for "A Kiss To Build a Dream On." This version of the lyrics does not include the verse. To hear the verse sung, listen to Wesla Whitfield on the
Cafe Songbook Main Stage above. As Wesla sings the verse, it goes as follows:

How am I to bear this separation?
Give me just a little hope to cling to,
Fan the flame of my imagination,
So I can dream till we meet again.

Editor's note: Wesla Whitfiled is in the habit of singing the verse in virtually all of her performances and recordings, a habit not shared by many other performers. Checking The Complete lyrics reveals that her rendering is true to the original.

The Complete Lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein II, Amy Asch (Ed.), New York: Alfred A. Knoph/Borzoi Books, 2008.

Click here to read Cafe Songbook lyrics policy.

(This section is currently in preparation.)

Visitor Comments

Credits