"I'm Building up to an Awful Letdown": Song history, Commentary, Discography, Performances on Video

"I'm Building up to an Awful Letdown"

Fred Astaire's recording of "I'm Building Up to an Awful Letdown" reached the charts on February 22, 1936, and remained there for eight weeks, peaking at number 4.

The music credit for "I'm Building Up to an Awful Letdown" is, to a degree, in dispute. The Catalog of Copyright Entries (Part 3) shows the song as copyright Dec. 30, 1935, by Irving Berlin Inc., New York, with words by Johnny Mercer and music by Fred Astaire. All observed sheet music indicates the same.

As you can hear (on the Main Stage above) in Fred Astaire's spoken introduction to his rendition of the song (from a 1952 recording), he corroborates his credit for writing the music to "I'm Building Up to an Awful Letdown." After admitting to his long-time "yen" to write songs, He states, referring to "I'm Building Up . . . ," I wrote a number of songs, one with Johnny Mercer that made the Hit Parade around 1935." (He's off by a couple of months. It made the charts in February, 1936.)

In his autobiography from 1959, Steps in Time, Astaire expands a bit on his earlier comment, but says essentially the same thing, except changing the year this time to 1938:

Songwriting was a serious hobby of mine. At one point I really wanted to give up every other side of show business to concentrate on composing. I also wrote lyrics, but they were not my real goal. I'm afraid they were pretty bad. My music was not much either, but I was trying, and it rather jarred me that I couldn't prove something. Oh, I've had lots of songs published. I even had a hit, "I'm Building Up to an Awful Let-Down [sic]," written with a Johnny Mercer lyric in '38. That one made the Hit Parade. I've had others that were played around a bit (Astaire, p. 46, hardcover Ed.) .

Both of Mercer's biographers, Philip Furia and Gene Lees, as well as the group of scholars led by Robert Kimball who edited The Complete Lyrics of Johnny Mercer, have Mercer and Astaire running into each other in Hollywood in 1935, either on the RKO lot or at a local recording studio where Mercer was recording a song with Ginger Rogers, with Astaire taking the opportunity to let Mercer know he had a tune that the lyricist might want to take a look at. Mercer took it and came back with "I'm Building Up to an Awful Letdown."

On the other hand, both Peter Mintun, an authority on American popular songs and films, and Michael Feinstein have expressed a different account of who wrote the music for the song. They credit Hal Borne. Mintun states his view in his introductory comments to his own performance of the song just below and elaborates on them in the notes that accompany the video: "Fred Astaire's loyal pianist at R-K-O, Hal Borne, composed this tune and allowed Astaire to put his name on the music as a way to popularize the song. The lyrics are by Johnny Mercer.*

In the documentary Michael Feinstein's American Songbook (Season Two) broadcast on PBS in February, 2012, the singer and music scholar devotes a small section to Hal Borne in which he too makes the claim that it was Borne who actually wrote the music to "I'm Building Up to an Awful Letdown."

*Mintun continues about Borne that he "would later have a minor hit with 'I Ain't Hep To That Step' (But I'll Dig It)" [written with Johnny Mercer] (from Second Chorus) and "Tenement Symphony" (from The Big Store). "I'm Building Up . . ." ranked as high as number five on Your Hit Parade beginning in February of 1936. It was widely recorded on every American label as well as on British records."

The Complete Lyrics of Johnny Mercer,
Robert Kimball,
Barry Day, Miles Kreuger, and Eric Davis (Eds.),
New York: Alfred A. Knoph, 2009.

• Peter Mintun: PeterMintunMusic
• Marty Grosz: swingyoucats

Notes

• from Joel Whitburn, Pop Memories 1890-1954: The History of American Popular Music , 1986.
• Peter Mintun plays, sings and discusses the origins of "I'm Building Up to an Awful Letdown."
• Read the authoritative lyrics in:

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