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 at the London Pavilion on May 19, 1927. The show starred Jessie Matthews, Douglas Byng, Lance Lister, and Richard Dolman, running for 237 performances.

Background

In March 1927, Rodgers and Hart had traveled to Paris from London to meet with the arranger Robert Russell Bennett, 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 nearly demolished the cab the two songwriters, along with their two female companions, were riding in. One of the young women cried out in apparent fright, “Oh! My heart stood still!” Hart instantly urged Rodgers to make a note of her exclamation as a potential song title. Rodgers 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, but he quickly produced the lyric for the song.
Rodgers and Hart later had to buy back the rights from Cochran when they wanted the song for the musical A Connecticut Yankee, where it was introduced by Constance Carpenter and William Gaxton.

Notable recordings