"Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries" is a popular song with music by Ray Henderson and lyrics by Lew Brown, published in 1931.[1] Ethel Merman introduced this song in George White's Scandals of 1931.[2] A Rudy Vallée version, recorded in 1931, spent five weeks in the top-10 pop music charts.[3] The song was revived in 1953 by singer Jaye P. Morgan.[4]
The song title gave rise to the revue of composer Ray Henderson's music called It's the Cherries, which launched the American Composer Series in 2000.[5]
In popular culture
- In the 1981 Steve Martin mock musical, Pennies From Heaven, a performance of the song by Walter S. Harrah, Gene Merlino, Vern Rowe, Robert Tebow and Al Vescovo is used in a cutaway segment in which Martin, Bernadette Peters, and Jessica Harper lip sync to the song.[6][7]
- The song is featured in the soundtrack for the 1983 documentary Seeing Red (1983 film).
- It is the opening song of the Broadway show Fosse, as sung by Ben Vereen.
- The song is featured in the soundtrack for the 2012 movie Killing Them Softly, starring Brad Pitt.
- The song is twice sung in the 2013 movie Adoration starring Robin Wright, Naomi Watts, and Ben Mendelson.
- The song is sung in an episode of ITV's Poirot ( "Third Floor Flat") while a body is discovered.
The song is sung by David Hyde Pierce in the fifth episode of the second season of Julia as a duet between identical twins Paul and Charles Child.