They All Laughed is a 1937 jazz-pop song composed by George Gershwin with lyrics by Ira Gershwin. It was written for the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers film Shall We Dance and introduced by Ginger Rogers in a dance routine with Astaire. The first recording was by Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra with Edythe Wright in March 1937, and a notable Fred Astaire version with Johnny Green and His Orchestra was recorded for Brunswick on March 18, 1937 and released as a single. The lyric celebrates those who laughed at great achievements such as Columbus, Edison, the Wright brothers, Marconi, and Ford, asking Who's got the last laugh now? The tune has become a Gershwin standard, covered by many artists including Fred Astaire again in 1952 and 1975, and Frank Sinatra on Trilogy: Past Present Future (1980).
