"Ten Cents a Dance" is a popular song with music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Lorenz Hart. The song was published in 1930.

Background

The song lyrics tell of a taxi dancer lamenting the hardships of her job. The song was originally written for Lee Morse who was acting in the musical Simple Simon, but when Morse showed up intoxicated at the Boston opening of the musical, Florenz Ziegfeld fired her. She was replaced by Ruth Etting in the show, and Etting popularized the song as well in a Columbia recording made in 1930. This recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999. In 2012, it was added to the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry list of "culturally, historically, or aesthetically important" American sound recordings.

Reprises

Popular culture

Parodies