Song 107 - Getting to know you - Rodgers and Hammerstein

Staying with music from films and taking another song from a pantomime I was in, Getting to know you, is a lovely number about friendship blooming and potentially romance depending on how you read/hear the lyrics.

Taken from the 1951 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I, Gertrude Lawrence was the first Anna to sing this song and then for the film Marni Nixon dubbed it for Deborah Kerr in 1956. The lyrics reference the affectionate relationship Anna is building up with the children and wives of the King of Siam. Although it is hard to image, the fate of this song was once to be rejected by Rodgers and Hammerstein, who had first thought up the tune for the musical South Pacific, released on Broadway in 1949. They had originally thought about using the melody for a song called Suddenly lucky to be sung by Neille. Changing their minds at the last minute, they wrote (I'm in love with) a Wonderful guy instead for this production, which was fortunate as it is hard to imagine either musical without the two songs in them as we identify with them.

The King and I is based on the book about Anna Leonowens, who became schoolteacher to the King of Siam's children. Labelled as an autobiography, there has been recent doubts raised to how accurate the book is, the book was transformed into the wonderful musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein. Originally it had been hoped that Gertrude Lawrence would have been able to star in the film as well as the musical as the score had been written for her voice. However, sadly Lawrence died of cancer before the film was made and Deborah Kerr was brought in. Kerr couldn't sing and worked closely with Marni Nixon who's voice was dubbed in. Kerr and Nixon would work closely together on this arrangements and Nixon would again help Kerr in her later film An affair to remember.

There was no dubbing of voices when I was in the local pantomime Aladdin and the song was used throughout the pantomime and at the end. The words of friendship since then has always stayed with me as there is nothing greater than being part of a big production where you have the chance to work with people you would never really talk to you. I think The King and I embraces the idea that you shouldn't judge anybody until you get to know them and then you should respect the differences, rather than trying to say one way is better than the other.

To hear and see the lovely song:
Getting to know you from the King and I

Written by Rodgers and Hammerstein
Date released: 1951, Broadway
Film released: 1956