Songfacts®:

• This Cole Porter classic was introduced by June Knight in the Broadway musical Jubilee in 1935, and Artie Shaw's 1938 instrumental version went to #1 and made it famous. In 1956 Ella Fitzgerald released the first of her famous series of Songbooks of great American composers. Cole Porter's songs were the first in the series, and this was among the 35 tracks on the album.
• This is played in the Hollywood productions Broadway Melody Of 1940 and Night And Day (1946), a mostly fictional biopic of composer Porter. >>

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  Doug - West Miami, FL, for above 2
• A Beguine is a ballroom dance similar to a rumba. Cole Porter, who invented the word Beguine, also wrote "Let's End The Beguine" for Beatrice Lillie in 1944.
• The musical Jubilee was inspired by King George V and Queen Mary's silver anniversary.
• Artie Shaw, Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby, Tom Jones and Dionne Warwick have all recorded this.
• Cole Porter wrote this while aboard the Franconia ocean liner during a Pacific cruise in 1935.
• Sheryl Crow performed this song in the 2004 Cole Porter biopic, De-Lovely, named for the Porter song.
• Jazz trumpeter Harry James, who had just struck out on his own when he left Benny Goodman's orchestra, heard a 24-year-old unknown named Frank Sinatra sing this song at a New Jersey roadhouse in 1939. He recruited him as the male vocalist for his new band because he "liked Frank's way of talking a lyric."
• On the Friends episode "The One with the Ballroom Dancing" (1997), a portion of the instrumental plays when Joey first attempts to teach Mr. Treeger to dance.