“Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” is a song written by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin for the 1937 film Shall We Dance, where it was introduced by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers as part of a celebrated dance duet on roller skates. The sheet music has the tempo marking of “Brightly”. The song was ranked No. 34 on AFI’s 100 Years…100 Songs.
The song illustrates a conversation between a man and a woman who are in a romantic relationship. However, because they are from two different social classes, the way they pronounce certain words such as “tomato” and “potato” is making them both reconsider if they should continue with the relationship or not. However, at the end they both realise that it would break their hearts if they parted. Therefore, they decide to continue their romance. The original version of the song has a faster tempo and the singers are accompanied by an orchestra. The sound of the song is structured and typical.
The differences in pronunciation are not simply regional, however, but serve more specifically to identify class differences. At the time, typical American pronunciations were considered less “refined” by the upper-class, and there was a specific emphasis on the “broader” a sound. This class distinction with respect to pronunciation has been retained in caricatures, especially in the theatre, where the longer a pronunciation is most strongly associated with the word darling.
The difference with the Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong version is that it has a slower, jazzier tempo. They were accompanied by a band but the piano is the main instrument displayed. The blue’s tonality is heard throughout the performance, mainly in the voices of the two Blues singers. They perfectly embody the voices of two lovers by making it romantic, as well as playful at times. It is easier to sing along with because of the flexibility of the tempo.
In a February 1970, Anne Bancroft television special, “Annie: The Women in the Life of a Man,” Bancroft appears in a comedy sketch with David Susskind in which she plays a hapless singer in an audition who sings the song from sheet music, cluelessly ignoring the different pronunciation of to-may-to and to-mah-to, etc. Ira Gershwin relates a similar incident in his 1959 book. An essentially similar sketch was performed by comedians John Bird and John Fortune in the 1976 Amnesty International benefit concert A Poke In The Eye (With A Sharp Stick).
