"All I Do Is Dream of You": song history, Commentary, Discography, Performances on Video

"All I Do Is Dream of You"

Written for Sadie McKee (Movie, 1934)

Sadie McKee: Movie directed by Clarence Brown, starring Joan Crawford, Gene Raymond, Franchot Tone, and Edward Arnold. All I Do Is Dream of You is the main musical motif in the film, first sung by Tommy Wallace (Gene Raymond) as he is falling for Sadie McKee (Joan Crawford). Later, Wallace, who has deserted Sadie for show business and a new lover, is sitting in a theater box as part of an on-stage act. He begins by singing the song to his partner (who is off-camera on stage), but when he spots Sadie, whom he still loves, sitting in the audience, he fixes his attention on her.

Although Debbie Reynold's performance in Singin' in the Rain (See just below.) is the most well known version of "All I do is Dream of You," Gene Raymond's is the first. Interestingly, Arthur Freed who wrote the song's lyric for Raymond to sing in Sadie McKee in 1934, became the producer of Singin' in the Rain almost twenty years later in 1952, choosing some of his own previously written songs for the score, including the title song.

Singin' in the Rain, (1952) performed by Debbie Reynolds and Girls Chorus. Apparently the intention was that Gene Kelly (who is in the scene) would also sing a version of "All I Do is Dream of You," because an out-take of his performance exists. Kelly did it as a ballad more like Raymond's performance in Sadie McKee (See above.), with Debbie's "boop-boop-a-doop style" nowhere to be heard. A track of Kelly's version, althoug dropped from the film, is on the Soundtrack album, available at Amazon (with MP3 sample). Here is Debbie:

Source: Joel Whitburn, Pop Memories, 1890-1954, Menomonee Falls, WI: Record Research Inc., 1986.
For later recordings, go to the Cafe Songbook Record Cabinet.

Philip Furia and Michael Lasser,
America's Songs: The Stories Behind the Songs of Broadway, Hollywood, and Tin Pan Alley, New York: Routledge, 2006.

Philip Furia in his book The Poets of Tin Pan Alley makes a case that "All I Do Is Dream of You," along with other Brown and Freed Songs such as "You Are My Lucky Star," finds its place as an ironic link between different eras of the The Great American Songbook:

Although Freed and Brown were primarily West Coast songwriters (Brown had never set foot in Tin Pan Alley), they nevertheless had all the old Alley formulas down pat: simple rhymes and harmonies, back-to-back box-like phrases, and sentiments that never ventured beyond the tritest romantic cliches. Even though they wrote most of their hits [including "All I Do Is Dream of You" and "You Are My Lucky Star"] in the 1930's, Freed and Brown's songs sound as if they were written in the 1920's, at the height of the era of "bone-simple" music and lyrics. So perfectly anachronistic are such songs that they were later used in Singin' in the Rain (1952), a film musical (produced by Freed) about the birth of the talkies in the mid-1920's ( Philip Furia, The Poets of Tin Pan Alley p. 235 paper bound edition).

To see these qualities come to life, view Brown's and Freed's 1934 song in a 1920's boop-boop-a-doop style" as performed by Debbie Reynolds' in the 1952 movie Singin' in the Rain of

Philip Furia with Michael Lasser in their book America's Songs point out that Reynolds' singing of "All I Do Is Dream of You" in the movie is one of the only songs she actually sings herself, and is part of an ironic three ring Hollywood circus of dubbing:

In most of her other songs, including those in which she appears to be dubbing Lena Lamont (played by Jean Hagen), Reynolds voice was dubbed by Betty Royce. To compound the irony, at one point, when Reynolds appears to be dubbing the speaking voice of Jean Hagen, Hagen actually dubbed for her . "Jean's voice is quite remarkable, and it was supposed to be cultured speech," director Stanley Donan explained, "and Debbie had this terrible western noise." For a movie about the "smoke and mirrors" of filmmaking, these ironies should not be surprising. ( Philip Furia and Michael Lasser, America's Songs, pp. 235-6, hard bound edition) .

Arthur Freed provided two verse s for "All I Do Is Dream of You." One precedes the refrain and the other follows it (See below.)--with the refrain meant to be repeated after the second verse. Most singers drop both verses. Even in Gene Raymond's rendition in Sadie McKee , the movie for which the song was written, no verse is heard. Other performers use one or the other of the verses. For example, Judy Garland begins with the first verse whereas Leslie Hutchinson begins the song with the second. Neither sings both. The only singer we have come across who manages to include both is Michael Feinstein , but he does it in a Medley that interweaves "All I Do Is Dream of You" with another Freed/Brown standard, "You Are My Lucky Star." Nevertheless, as is so often his wont being a scholar as well as a performer, he manages to include all the words and notes the lyricist and composer wrote. Here Are the two verses: Verse 1 Out of a clear blue sky Into my heart you came, Not for a day But here to stay. I'll always feel the same. Refrain All I do is dream of you the whole night through. With the dawn, I still go on and dream of you . . . . etc. Verse 2 When ev'ry day begins, when ev'ry day is done, Here in my heart, Never to part, You'll always be the one. Repeat refrain.

• Stacey Kent: gordoncamp
• Gene Raymond: LordWham
• Debbie Reynolds: KristyLee D.
• Chico Marx: Citizen907
• Leslie Hutchinson: edmundusrex
• Sarah Vaughan: vladimirsmartins
• Michael Bublé: Douglas Ong

Notes

• Other songs written for title currently included in the Cafe Songbook Catalog of The Great American Songbook :
• (Please complete or pause one video before starting another.)
• Use in Productions Other Than the Movie it was Written for
• A Night at the Opera, performed by Chico Marx on piano, 1935. (View video of Chico playing in the Record/Video Cabinet.)
• Debbie Reynold performs "All I Do Is Dream of You" in the movie Singin' in the Rain , 1952.
• The Affairs of Dobie Gillis , performed by Debbie Reynolds and Bobby Van, 1953
• Joel Whitburn, Pop Memories 1890-1954: The History of American Popular Music , 1986
• Early Recordings That Made the Charts (year and chart #)
• Jan Garber, 1934 (1); Henry Busse, 1934 (9); Freddy Martin, 1934 (11)
• The complete and authoritative lyrics for "All I Do Is Dream of You" can be found in

Cite this page: "All I Do Is Dream of You": song history, Commentary, Discography, Performances on Video, Cafe Songbook, https://greatamericansongbook.net/pages/songs/a/all_i_do_is_dream_of_you.html