A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody

The portion of the song composed entirely by Berlin and published as sheet music contained the first verse and refrain of the original stage number. The refrain begins, "A pretty girl is like a melody / That haunts you night and day", a summary of the song's extended simile. The refrain is better known than the introductory verse, which critic Josh Rubins called "mercifully little-known". Magee concludes, from Travis' lack of memory of the Träumerei, that it was dropped from the number during rehearsals. ==Ziegfeld Follies==

won the Academy Award for Best Dance Direction for a spectacular production of the song in The Great Ziegfeld (MGM, 1936) Berlin had agreed with Florenz Ziegfeld to write one act of the 1919 follies, including a "Ziegfeld Girl number" to showcase the showgirls. He first conceived of the classical portion, to match costumes the girls would be wearing. He sang the first verse and chorus alone on stage; then each of the remaining five verses while a showgirl sashayed by in costume appropriate to the quoted air. "A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody" was the hit song of that year's Follies, and became the theme song for all later Follies. In the 1936 film The Great Ziegfeld, the song was the centerpiece musical number performed on a huge set containing a spiral staircase, which has been compared to a wedding cake or "giant meringue". The scene reworked the original stage number on a far grander scale, with many dancers in various period costumes and a wide array of classical music references. The scene became famous and was included in the 1974 anthology film ''That's Entertainment!'' ==Later versions and recordings==

"An Experiment in Modern Music", the 1924 concert where George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue premiered, also featured a "Semi-Symphonic Arrangement of Popular Melodies", combining three Berlin tunes: "Alexander's Ragtime Band", "A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody" and "Orange Blossoms in CA". The song was used frequently in the annual Miss America pageant prior to 1955, when "There She Is, Miss America" by Bernie Wayne became its new theme song. In 1963, Tom Prideaux wrote in Life magazine that the song "has been played ever since [1919] for God knows how many beauty contests, debutante cotillions and strip-tease acts." It was also often used in catwalk fashion shows. Louis Armstrong, Toots Thielemans, Eddie Heywood, Artie Shaw, George Shearing, ==Reception and critiques==

In 1947, Berlin called the song one of his five most important songs structurally, saying he used the "same rhythmic pattern" in other songs. Josh Rubins wrote in 1988 that "'A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody'—one of Berlin-the-composer's best things—has been seriously damaged by overexposure and insensitive handling". He states that by the 1960s "the song's first four chords devolved into a vaudeville gag: musical shorthand for any reference to overt female sexuality (or transvestism)." ==Allusions==

Several of Berlin's later Follies songs, including "The Girls of My Dreams" and "Say It With Music", have been described as having been "cloned" from "A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody". In the 1960s Mad magazine published a collection of parody lyrics of well-known songs, including "Louella Schwartz Describes Her Malady"; in Irving Berlin et al. v. E.C. Publications, Inc. the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that this did not violate Berlin's copyright. Stephen Sondheim wrote the song "Beautiful Girls" from the 1972 stage musical Follies based on this song. In fact, since the musical is supposed to be set on a former theater (based on the Ziegfeld Follies), some of the songs of the show are pastiches of tunes from this same time, written by such composers as Berlin himself, Richard Rodgers, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Sigmund Romberg and others. The album 69 Love Songs includes a song "A Pretty Girl is...", whose final verse begins "A melody is like a pretty girl". The first verse begins "A pretty girl is like a minstrel show". The 1919 Follies' had also featured a song called "I'd Rather See a Minstrel Show". ==References==