Here’s a song introduced by Cliff “Ukulele Ike” Edwards, a pleasant expression of love that fits as easily into a big band arrangement (Annette Hanshaw, the Dorsey Brothers, Woody Herman) as it does into individual artists own unique vocal or musical styles-- artists as diverse as Leif Garrett, Peter Sellers, Robert Crumb, and Taco).
The song’s origins are lost to history.
Doris Eaton Travis, a showgirl, swears she sang it onstage in the Hollywood Music Box Revue in 1928. The Los Angeles Times review of the show corroborates her story, as it mentions the song. Arthur Freed (lyrics) and Nacio Herb Brown (music) did write for that show, but soon enough they were working for MGM. It was MGM that copyrighted the song in 1929, and put it into their first All-Talking! All Singing! All Dancing! extravaganza: The Hollywood Revue of 1929. Cliff “Ukelele Ike” Edwards introduces the song (billed as "Singing in the Rain" with the 'g' still there), and is backed up by the MGM Chorus. Look closely at the chorus as the camera pans by… some of the folks are reading off cue cards… there’s Jack Benny... there’s Joan Crawford… and there’s Buster Keaton (making no effort to open his mouth)
The movie sent the song to the top of pop charts. It held onto the #1 slot for 3 weeks. Sheet music sales were good, so that when Jimmy Durante, in 1932’s Speak Easily starts humming the song, claiming it is an original that will be a guaranteed smash hit, everybody in the audience knows the joke.
The song pops into one more MGM musical before its namesake. In 1940, Judy Garland sings it in Little Nellie Kelly, an adaptation of George M. Cohan stage play (adapted, in this case, meaning removing all but one of Cohan’s songs). And why not, Arthur Freed was producer.
Sources:
Johnson, Jim. A Class Act: Those Golden Movie Musicals.<http://www.classicmoviemusicals.com/musics.htm#singinintherain> (26 June 2002)
Johnson, Jim. “Little Nellie Kelley.” Judy Garland Database.
<http://www.zianet.com/jjohnson/nellie.htm> (26 June 2002)
Sarabia, Tony. “Singin’ in the Rain.” All Things Considered. National Public Radio broadcast, July 16, 2001.