Ella Fitzgerald popularised Irving Berlin’s song Get Thee Behind Me Satan nearly 25 years after it first appeared in a Hollywood movie.

Not being a reader of the Bible, I was not familiar with the injunction to “Get Thee Behind Me Satan” until the White Stripes made it an album title.

That came out in 2005. But 70 years earlier it was the title of a song composed by Irving Berlin. And nearly a quarter of a century after that came this version by Ella Fitzgerald.

It was originally composed by Irving Berlin for the 1935 Ginger Rogers film Top Hat but ended up being saved for Follow The Fleet, a nautical-themed musical comedy with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers that came out the following year.

The movie spawned three hits in its own right: Astaire’s versions of Let Yourself Go, I’m Putting All My Eggs In One Basket and Let’s Face The Music And Dance.

This song was sung by Harriet Hilliard, who was making her debut in the film, and became the mother of future pop idol Rick(y) Nelson.

Looking up the film, I find a fascinating review from The Spectator written by Graham Greene, which caught my eye because I’m reading one of his novels and had forgotten he was previously a journalist.

Amusingly, he compared Astaire’s acting to Mickey Mouse, observing that their physical movements both “break the laws of nature.”

He also denounced the British Board of Film Censors’ decision to bleep the word “Satan” from this song when the film was shown in the UK.

Trivia fact: Fitzgerald’s version also appeared in the Paul Thomas Anderson film The Master, chosen for the soundtrack by Johnny Greenwood, who composed the score.

It was later recorded in 1941 by the Almanac Singers a group including folk legend Pete Seeger, who changed the lyrics into a union song.