Love Is Here to Stay

Love Is Here to Stay was composed by George Gershwin with lyrics by Ira Gershwin. It holds a singular place in the Gershwin catalog as the last song George completed before his death from a brain tumor on July 11, 1937, at age 38. The song was written for Samuel Goldwyn's 1938 film The Goldwyn Follies, where it was first performed by Kenny Baker. Ira added lyrics posthumously, and Vernon Duke reconstructed the verse from George's unnotated piano demos with the help of Ira and Oscar Levant. Also known as Our Love Is Here to Stay, the composition is a lyrical 32-bar AABA ballad with a smooth, continuously flowing melodic line. Oscar Levant noted that the second eight bars of the A section lack breathing space due to long melodic contours, a quality George considered revising but ultimately retained. The bridge features rhythmic diminution that accelerates the melodic rhythm without changing tempo. The song gained wider recognition through Gene Kelly's performance opposite Leslie Caron in the 1951 film An American in Paris and has appeared in films including Manhattan (1979). On AllSolos, the tune is represented across four recordings: Dexter Gordon's Our Man in Paris (1963) with solos by Gordon and Bud Powell; Harry Connick Jr.'s When Harry Met Sally soundtrack (1989) with a Frank Wess tenor saxophone solo; Louis Armstrong's trumpet solo on Ella and Louis Again (1957); and Alexis Cole's Sky Blossom (2021) with solos by Alex Flavell and Nathan King.