seems we have met before

Most evenings, I have the TV set to Turner Classic Movies.  Last night Babes in Arms, 1939, was playing. I wasn't especially interested, but I left it on in the background, while I was puttering at other things, until the song "Where or When" jumped out and grabbed me. Of course, I've heard the song, but never paid much attention. I had to Google the lyrics. It's a gorgeous song, the words by Lorenz Hart and music by Richard Rodgers. I woke up this morning with the melody playing in my head, in stereophonic glory.

Their musical, Babes in Arms,1937, opened on Broadway at the Shubert Theatre on April 14, 1937. The film version, released in 1939, starred Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney. It was directed by Busby Berkeley, and is about a teen-age boy who puts on a show with his friends to avoid being sent to a work farm.

VERSE

Sometimes you think you've lived before
All that you live today
Things you do come back to you
As though they knew the way
Oh, the tricks your mind can play.

REFRAIN

It seems we stood and talked like this before
we looked at each other in the same way then,
But I can't remember where or when.
The clothes you're wearing are the clothes you wore.
The smile you are smiling you were smiling then,
But I can't remember where or when.

Some things that happend for the first time,
Seem to be happening again.
And so it seems that we have met before
and laughed before
and loved before,
But who knows where or when.


I couldn't find a video clip of Judy Garland singing the entire song from the movie, but being the old fashioned girl, I happen to adore Mario Lanza's version from December, 1951. It makes me weak in the knees.

But, just in case Lanza isn't exactly your cup of musical tea, I'm also including a great current rendition by Diana Krull. The song is brilliantly timeless.