The lyricist Ira Gershwin, one half of the great songwriting duo, offers an illuminating view of

how he approached his art, ready to consider change yet not always willing to go with it.

In his "standard" "They Can't Take That Away From Me", he uses the following as an example:

"We may never, never meet again

On the bumpy road to love,

Still, I'll always, always keep

The mem'ry of

The way you hold your knife,

The way we danced till three,

The way you've changed my life-

No, no! They can't take that away from me!

No! They can't take that away from me!

Studying those lines, he realised he could have written

"We may never, never meet again

On the bumpy road to love,

Still I don't know when

I won't be thinking of -

The way you hold your knife," (etc.)

He saw the rhyme of "again" and "when" on important notes, and liked the double negative of

"I don't know when I won't".  He admitted if the latter verse had occurred first he may have

used it - but, later, on reflection - no dice!  He considered that the first version - with

"always, always" following "never, never", plus all the "No, no!"s made for a better balance.

So - that's how successful work can happen and how writers are advised to "always, always"

consider the alternative even if they don't settle for it.

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