‘Someone to watch over me’ is a 1926 song composed by George Gershwin. It was written for the musical ‘Oh, Kay!’ in 1926. The successful musical ran for more than 200 performances in New York and then saw equivalent acclaim in London in 1927; all with the song as its centrepiece.
Initially, ‘Someone to watch over me’ was written as a ‘fast and jazzy’ up-tempo swing tune but in the 1930s and 1940s it was recorded by singers in a slower ballad form, which became the standard. More than 1,800 recordings of the song have been published, almost all of them performed in the slow ballad style.
Dutch arranger Roger Niese transcribed ‘Someone to watch over me’ for Mezzo Soprano accompanied by a Symphonic Band.