"My One and Only" was composed by George Gershwin with lyrics by Ira Gershwin for the 1927 Broadway musical Funny Face, where it was introduced by Fred Astaire alongside Betty Compton and Gertrude McDonald. The show served as a vehicle for Fred and Adele Astaire and featured several other Gershwin hits including "'S Wonderful." The song is a lively, syncopated number rooted in the ragtime-inflected style that characterized much of George Gershwin's early Broadway output. Its melody is direct and appealing, carried over a striding left-hand bass pattern with appoggiaturas and rhythmic displacement adding energy and forward motion. Gershwin later included the tune in his 1932 Song-Book, a collection of solo piano transcriptions that documented his own improvisational approach to his theater songs. The composition gained renewed visibility in 1983 when the Broadway musical My One and Only, a pastiche production featuring Tommy Tune and Twiggy, wove several Gershwin songs including this one into a new storyline. While not as widely performed as some of Gershwin's other standards, the tune has maintained a place in the Great American Songbook. Ella Fitzgerald recorded it in 1950 for her intimate duo album with pianist Ellis Larkins, a session devoted entirely to Gershwin material that highlighted the song's melodic charm in a spare, voice-and-piano setting.
