Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
From Broadway Musical "Roberta"
Music by Jerome Kern
Words by Otto Harbach

They ask me how I knew
My true love was true.
I of course replied,
Something here inside,
Cannot be denied.
　
They said someday you'll find,
All who love are blind,
When your heart's on fire,
You must realize
Smoke gets in your eyes.
　
So I chaffed them and I gaily laughed
to think they could doubt my love.
Yes today my love has flown away
I am without my love.
　
Now laughing friends deride
Tears I cannot hide,
So I smile and say,
"When a lovely flame dies,
Smoke gets in your eyes."

It was 1933, the depths of the depression,and shows were closing up and down Broadway. But Roberta play on, thanks to this plaintive song, first intended by Kern as an instrumental interlude to fill in during scene changes. He dusted off a march he had composed some time earlier as a theme for an unproduced radio series, slowed down the tempo and then decided it could use lyrics after all. On opening night, Tamara and the song brought down the house. Later, Irene Dunne sang it in the film version.

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