"My Romance" is a popular song with music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Lorenz Hart, composed in 1935 for the Broadway musical Jumbo. The song was introduced by Gloria Grafton and Donald Novis in Billy Rose's lavish circus-themed production, which also featured other Rodgers and Hart standards including "Little Girl Blue" and "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World." The lyrics employ an ironic conceit characteristic of Hart's style, listing romantic clichés that are declared unnecessary before affirming that the beloved alone is sufficient. The melody is diatonic and elegantly simple, ascending in largely stepwise motion, while the harmony provides surprising depth through modulations to relative minor keys, secondary dominants, circle-of-fifths progressions, and occasional tritone substitutions. These harmonic features create a sense of emotional journey beneath the melody's apparent simplicity, making the tune particularly attractive to jazz improvisers. The standard 32-bar ABAC form provides a familiar framework, with the contrasting sections offering harmonic variety before resolving warmly to the tonic. An introductory verse exists but is rarely performed. "My Romance" has become a firmly established standard in both the popular and jazz repertoires, recorded extensively by vocalists and instrumentalists across decades. Its combination of a singable, memorable melody with harmonically rich changes has made it an enduring favorite for interpretation in a wide range of styles and tempos.
