My Ship (song)



"My Ship" is a popular song written for the 1941 Broadway musical Lady in the Dark, with music by Kurt Weill and lyrics by Ira Gershwin.

The music is marked "Andante espressivo"; Gershwin describes it as "orchestrated by Kurt to sound sweet and simple at times, mysterious and menacing at other".

It was premiered by Gertrude Lawrence in the role of Liza Elliott, the editor of a fashion magazine. In the context of the show, the song comes in a sequence in which Elliott, in psychoanalysis, recalls a turn-of-the-century song she knew in her childhood.

The song was not included in the 1944 Hollywood film Lady in the Dark, a fact which Ira Gershwin found inexplicable:

"Later, when Lady in the Dark was filmed, the script necessarily had many references to the song. But for some unfathomable reason the song itself—as essential to this musical drama as a stolen necklace or a missing will to a melodrama—was omitted. Although the film was successful financially, audiences evidently were puzzled or felt thwarted or something, because items began to appear in movie-news columns mentioning that the song frequently referred to in Lady in the Dark was 'My Ship'. I hold a brief for Hollywood, having been more or less a movie-goer since I was nine; but there are times..."

Cover versions
Artists who have recorded the song include:
 * Dee Dee Bridgewater - This Is New (2002)
 * Ron Carter (the latter on his 1978-album Peg Leg).
 * June Christy - Ballads For Night People (1959)
 * Jacqui Dankworth - As the Sun Shines Down on Me (2002)
 * Miles Davis on his 1957 album Miles Ahead. This version was also included on the 2005 compilation Late Night Tales: The Flaming Lips.
 * Steve Davis - Eloquence (2010)
 * Doris Day - I Have Dreamed (1961)
 * Judy Garland (1953)
 * Johnny Hartman - The Voice That Is! (1964)
 * Ute Lemper
 * Doretta Morrow
 * Helen Schneider
 * George Shearing on his piano solo album My Ship (recorded June 25, 1974), MPS Records, 1975.
 * Stan Kenton Road Band '67
 * Jeri Southern - When Your Heart's On Fire (1957)
 * Dawn Upshaw
 * Nancy Wilson - Broadway - My Way (1964)