"Pick Yourself Up"

"The Way You Look Tonight"

1936 by Chappell & Co.

August 1936

July 26, 1936[1]

Los Angeles, California

Jazz, Pop Vocal

Brunswick 7717[2]

Jerome Kern

Dorothy Fields

1944

Nat King Cole

1950

George Shearing

1962

Nat King Cole and George Shearing

Pick Yourself Up with Anita O'Day 1957

Anita O’Day

1961

Dakota Staton

and Nelson Riddle 1962

Ella Fitzgerald

arranged and conducted by Neal Hefti 1962

Frank Sinatra

1988

Mel Tormé

1996

Natalie Cole

1999

Diana Krall

1978 As "Pick Myself Up"

Peter Tosh

2013

Molly Ringwald

with The Jeff Hamilton Trio 2013

Wilford Brimley

2017[4]

Gregory Porter

The song was written for the film Swing Time (1936), where it was introduced by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Rogers plays a dance instructor whom Astaire follows into her studio; he pretends to have "two left feet" in order to get her to dance with him. Astaire sings the verse to her and she responds with the chorus. After an interlude, they dance to the tune. (Author John Mueller has written their dance "is one of the very greatest of Astaire's playful duets: boundlessly joyous, endlessly re-seeable.")[3] In 1936, Astaire recorded the song on his own for the Brunswick label.


The song has been covered many times, including by:

The tune served as the theme song for the short-lived 1955–56 television variety series The Johnny Carson Show. It was also the theme tune for the 1984-1986 ITV British Sitcom Fresh Fields and the 1989–1991 sequel French Fields Both starring Julia McKenzie and Anton Rodgers. It was occasionally used during filmed remotes on Late Night with David Letterman.

prime time

performed the song on an episode of The Muppet Show with Fozzie Bear.

Nancy Walker

performed the song while hosting Saturday Night Live in 2004.

Kate Winslet

On 20 January 2009, the 44th President of the United States, , in his inauguration speech, quoted the lyrics in the song, saying "Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America."[5] Frank Rich linked the lyric to Fields and the movie in The New York Times, writing that it was "one subtle whiff of the Great Depression" in the address.[6]

Barack Obama

Nat King Cole's version was also featured in the episode "Gliding Over All."

Breaking Bad