So Near and yet So Far

A 1941 recording by Fred Astaire

"So Near and yet So Far" is a song written by Cole Porter, for the 1941 film You'll Never Get Rich, where it was introduced by Fred Astaire, and accompanied a dance with Astaire and Rita Hayworth, choreographed by Robert Alton.^[1] Astaire and Hayworth's performance was significant as the only occasion where Astaire's female dancing partner led the choreography of the dance.^[2] Porter's biographer, William McBrien described the song as "beautiful and highly successful".^[3]

Priscilla Peña Ovalle in her book Dance and the Hollywood Latina describes the song as a "latune", a "tune with a Latin beat and an English-language lyric" that was a "U.S. consumer-friendly approximation" of an Afro-Cuban rumba.^[4] Theorist Gustavo Perez Firmat discussed "So Near and Yet So Far" in his book The Havana Habit and described it as "the most elegant rumba ever captured on film".^[5]

Notable recordings

• Eugenie Baird with Tony Pastor (1941 - Bluebird B-11267)^[6]
• Bobby Short – Bobby Short Loves Cole Porter (Atlantic, 1971)
• Ella Fitzgerald – Ella Loves Cole (Atlantic, 1972)

References

1. David Parkinson (31 May 2007). The Rough Guide to Film Musicals. Rough Guides Limited. p. 221. ISBN 978-1-84353-650-5.
2. Ovalle 2010, p. 85.
3. William McBrien (2011). Cole Porter. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. p. 244. ISBN 978-0-307-79188-7.
4. Ovalle 2010, p. 153.
5. Gustavo Perez Firmat (26 October 2010). The Havana Habit. Yale University Press. p. 14. ISBN 978-0-300-16876-1.
6. Idol, W. Chase Jr. (September 14, 1941). "Records". North Carolina, High Point. The High Point Enterprise. p. 12. Retrieved November 9, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.

• Ovalle, Priscilla Peña (2010). Dance and the Hollywood Latina: Race, Sex, and Stardom. New York: Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0-8135-5025-1.