Let's Face the Music and Dance
"Let's Face the Music and Dance" is a song written in 1936 by Irving Berlin for the film Follow the Fleet, where it was introduced by Fred Astaire and featured in a celebrated dance duet with Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It is also used in Pennies from Heaven, where Astaire's voice is lip-synched by Steve Martin, and in a celebrated Morecambe and Wise sketch involving newsreader Angela Rippon.
In the 1990s, Nat King Cole's version was used in a famous advert for Allied Dunbar; in response to this this version was reissued and reached number 30 in the UK charts in March 1994.
The song has been recorded by a plethora of artists. Hit versions in 1936 were by Fred Astaire and by Ted Fio Rito & His Orchestra. Ella Fitzgerald included this song in her landmark Verve Records release Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Irving Berlin Songbook.
In 2014, Scottish singer Todd Gordon recorded a duet with New York-based jazz singer Sunny Kim included on the album Love dot com. In 2018, it appeared in an episode of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.
