Tea for Two (song)

"Tea for Two" is a song from the 1925 musical No, No, Nanette with music by Vincent Youmans and lyrics by Irving Caesar. It is a duet sung by Nanette and Tom (Louise Groody and Jack Barker) in Act II as they imagine their future. It was also sung by Doris Day and Gordon MacRae in the 1950 musical film, Tea for Two.

The song contains abrupt key changes between A-flat major and C-major. The song also consists mostly of dotted eighth and quarter notes. Alec Wilder described these features as being uncharacteristic of a great theatrical song but acknowledged the song's great success regardless.

The story may be apocryphal, but Irving Caesar indicated on Steve Allen's radio show that the lyrics were intended to be temporary.

The earliest recordings of the song were by Marion Harris (Brunswick 2747), Ben Bernie (Vocalion 14901) and the Benson Orchestra of Chicago (Victor 19438), in 1925.

In October 1927, the conductor Nikolai Malko challenged Dmitri Shostakovich to do an arrangement of the song after the two listened to it on record at Malko's house. Malko bet 100 roubles that Shostakovich could not completely re-orchestrate it from memory in under an hour. Shostakovich took him up and won, completing it in around 45 minutes. His "Tea for Two" arrangement, Opus 16, was first performed on 25 November 1928. It was incorporated into Tahiti Trot from his ballet The Golden Age first performed in 1929.

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