best to give a pleasant and jingly Mother Goose quality to a tune which should throw its weight around more". Finally, he began to experiment with leaving most of the lines unrhymed. "This approach felt stronger," he wrote, "and I finally arrived at the present refrain, with only 'more-door' and 'mind him-find him' the rhymes." He added that this approach "was a bit daring for me who usually depended on rhyme insurance". Ira also wrote that, although the phrase "Who could ask for anything more?" is repeated four times in the song, he decided not to make it the title because "somehow the first line of the refrain sounded more arresting and provocative". Disputed authorship In 1987 Judith Anne Still, the daughter of William Grant Still, wrote in a letter that Gershwin stole the song from her father. ... my father said that Gershwin came to the Negro shows in Harlem to get his inspiration, stealing melodies wholesale from starving minority composers and then passing them off as his own. "I Got Rhythm" was my father's creation, according to Eubie Blake. History The song was included in the Gershwin brothers' 1931 Broadway musical Of Thee I Sing.The meaning of this song is how she was perfectly fine with her life and loved how it was going no matter what. An instrumental arrangement for piano and orchestra appears in the 1945 Hollywood Victory Caravan. The song is featured in the 1951 musical film An American in Paris. Gene Kelly sang the song and tap-danced, while French-speaking children whom he had just taught a few words of English shouted the words "I got" each time they appeared in the lyrics. This version finished at #32 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs survey of top tunes in American cinema. It is also featured in the film Mr. Holland's Opus, during a scene in which students are trying out for a Gershwin revue, and in the movie My Girl, during a dinner scene in which the grandmother sings it, oblivious of the other characters. An extensive list of notable singers have recorded this song. The most popular versions are those of The Happenings (#3 on the US charts in 1967), Judy Garland, Ethel Merman, Ella Fitzgerald and, more recently, Jodi Benson. It is a very popular jazz standard. Many songs use its chord progression, such as Duke Ellington's "Cotton Tail". Charlie Parker alone based many