Sing for Your Supper
"Sing for Your Supper" is an American popular song by composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Lorenz Hart. The song debuted in their 1938 Broadway musical The Boys from Syracuse where it was done as a trio, with Muriel Angelus, Marcy Westcott, and Wynn Murray performing an arrangement specially created for the production by Hugh Martin. The lyrics describe a singer performing to earn her meals: "Sing for your supper, /And you'll get breakfast./Songbirds always eat/If their song is sweet to hear."
The song has been recorded by Benny Goodman & His Orchestra, Rudy Vallée, Count Basie, Mel Tormé, Helen Humes, the Mamas & the Papas, and Cher. Author Ethan Mordden used the title for his book Sing for Your Supper: the Broadway Musical in the 1930s.
