Songs
Orchestra Wives features a treasure trove of songs by Mack Gordon and Harry Warren, the same team responsible for the hits featured in Miller's first film Sun Valley Serenade (1941). The main production number is "I've Got a Gal in Kalamazoo", an analogue of "Chattanooga Choo-Choo", from the first film that features a folksy vocal and some gutsy tenor sax work by Tex Beneke, backup singing by the Modernaires, and a gravity-defying dance sequence by the Nicholas Brothers. This was nominated: Best Music, Original Song in Academy Awards) Harry Warren (music), Mack Gordon (lyrics).
Other songs include the period piece "People Like You and Me", a breakneck performance of "Bugle Call Rag" and the classic romantic ballads "At Last" (originally intended for Miller's initial film, Sun Valley Serenade) and "Serenade in Blue". The film score uses "At Last" as a musical motif that is played throughout the movie in dramatic and romantic scenes. "That's Sabotage" was also written for the movie but was cut from the film. The song was, however, released as a 78 single by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra, and the unused soundtrack recording was featured on various LP compilations of Miller's soundtracks.
Glenn Miller's theme song "Moonlight Serenade" from 1939 also appears over the opening credits.
"Boom Shot", an instrumental composed by Glenn Miller and Billy May for the movie, also is played in the movie, first on the jukebox in the soda shop, then when Ann Rutherford and Harry Morgan are shown dancing, but is uncredited on the soundtrack and film credits. "Boom Shot" is heard in the movie when the Gene Morrison orchestra plays it at the dance as filmed by the camera in a boom shot.
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“And our sov’reign sole Creator
Lives eternal in the sky,
While we mortals yield to nature,
Bloom awhile, then fade and die.”
—Unknown. “Hail ye sighing sons of sorrow,” l. 13-16, Social and Campmeeting Songs (1828)
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—Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830–1894)