Tea for Two
Tea for Two - The Song
Tea for Two is a famous song that was initially introduced in 1925 in the Broadway musical “No, No Nanette”. The music was composed by Vincent Youmans and the beautiful lyrics were done by Irving Caesar. The song Tea for Two depicts the story of a young man in love who was planning his life with his lady love. The song is about the life that the love struck young man expects his life to be with the woman he wants to spend the rest of his life with.
Tea for Two, the song, was also a subject of a challenge when then famous conductor Nikolai Malko dared Dmitri Shostakovich an amount of 100 rubles to orchestrate the song. The condition pf the challenge was that Dmitri Shostakovich will only hear Tea for Two once from a record and then try to orchestrate it in less than an hour. Dmitri Shostakovich won the bet of one hundred rubles against Nikolai Malko by orchestrating the song in just 45 minutes.
Tea for Two, the song was interpreted in a different way by Tommy Dorsey and was revived when it was used in the McVities advertisements of their products. The song in this biscuit advertisement was the Tommy Dorsey version where it was done faster and in a chachacha way, which is reminiscent of Tommy Dorsey’s style.
Tea for Two - The Movie
The movie of Tea for Two featured the very popular actress and singer Doris Day. She was a wholesome actress that was famous for doing romantic comedies that were morally upright and had little or no sexual or malicious undertones. Other stars of the film Tea for Two are Gordon MacRae and Gene Nelson, who were both actors and singers. Eve Arden, Billy de Wolfe and Bill Goodwin were also part of the cast of the Tea for Two musical movie. Musicals were the trend during this era and many other movies with a musical theme were made.
Doris Day also had an album with the title Tea for Two, which included all of the songs which were featured in the movie. The song Tea for Two is one of the songs included in this album, among others. During that time, many other singers had done their versions of the song that Doris Day popularized. Tony Bennett was among them and many others. It is still used up to today as piano recital pieces and movie background music.
Written By The Tea Lady
The Tea Lady carefully tends to The Official Website for Tea and sends an occasional Tea Newsletter to ardent and casual tea lovers around the world.
