So Great Our Love

Lyricist. Irene Castle

Publisher. M. Witmark & Sons

Date. 1918

Key/Range. F Major (d' -- f")

COMMENTARY

The three stanzas of this lyric explore three different ways in which the Castles’ love stands the test of time: through separation, through togetherness, and through eternity. Irene expands her concept of eternal love in this song to include an explicit description of spirits wandering through the “shadowland,” which Tours set on a sharp-eleven-dominant sonority built on the subtonic (♭VII7-#11), a foreign borrowed chord that precedes a cascade of parallel chords that was unlike anything ever composed for the romantic ballad literature in its harmonic sophistication and daring.