# I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face

"I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" is a song from the 1956 musical My Fair Lady, with music by Frederick Loewe and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner. It was originally performed by Rex Harrison as Professor Henry Higgins who also performed it in the 1964 film version.

## Background

The song expresses Professor Henry Higgins's sentimental and wistful sadness for his pupil Eliza Doolittle who has chosen to walk out of his life, a sudden realization of how much he will miss her, and, in passing, his scorn for her life in a chosen marriage to Freddy. The song begins with an instrumental Reprise of "I'm an Ordinary Man", in which Higgins exclaims the word "Damn" four times. He quickly makes the terrible discovery that he's grown accustomed to her face. After the first verse, Higgins scorns the fact about how Eliza's marriage to Freddy would end up, reprising an abbreviated verse and Chorus from "I'm an Ordinary Man", before singing the second verse of "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face", realizing how much he truly misses her. Following his sining, an instrumental version of the song is herds Higgins enters his home, listening to Eliza's recorded voice, until she makes an appearance.

## Recorded versions

* Ronnie Aldrich
* Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass, later covered it on their 1964 album South of the Border (A&M Records LP-108 (mono), A&M Records SP-108 (stereo)).
* Chet Baker
* Count Basie
* Tony Bennett
* Andrew Bird
* Chris Botti
* Ruby Braff
* Cecil Brooks III
* Les Brown & his Band of Renown
* Jimmy Bruno
* Joe Bushkin
* Jerry Butler
* Jackie Cain
* Richard Clayderman
* Jay Clayton
* Petula Clark
* Nat King Cole
* Ray Conniff
* Bernard Cribbins
* Bing Crosby recorded the song in 1956 for use on his radio show and it was subsequently included in the box set The Bing Crosby CBS Radio Recordings (1954-56) issued by Mosaic Records (catalog MD7-245) in 2009.
* Rosemary Clooney
* Jesse Davis Quartet
* Sammy Davis Jr.
* Doris Day
* Paul Desmond
* Marlene Dietrich
* Arne Domnérus and his orchestra
* Eastern Rebellion (jazz quartet)
* Billy Eckstine
* Dewey Erney
* Gloria Estefan
* Connie Evingson
* Douglas Fairbanks Jr.
* Percy Faith
* Michael Feinstein
* Eddie Fisher
* Molly Flannery
* Shelby Flint
* Bruce Forman
* Sergio Franchi - Broadway, I Love You (1963)
* Forty Second Street Singers
* Art Garfunkel - Some Enchanted Evening (2007)
* Marvin Gaye - When I'm Alone I Cry album (1964)
* Stan Getz with Cal Tjader
* Jackie Gleason
* Golden State Orchestra & Singers
* Benny Goodman
* John Greaves
* Buddy Greco
* Stewie Griffin (In Family Guy)
* Frank Haley
* Eddie Harris
* Sam Harris
* Rex Harrison
* Coleman Hawkins
* Buck Hill
* Lena Horne
* Jeremy Irons
* Milt Jackson
* Maria João
* Jack Jones
* Quincy Jones on My Fair Lady Loves Jazz
* Roger Kellaway
* Barney Kessel
* Stacey Kent - The Lyric (2005)
* Diana Krall
* Steve Lawrence
* Peggy Lee
* Alec McCowen
* Gordon MacRae
* Shelly Manne - My Fair Lady (1956) (with André Previn)
* Mantovani
* Dean Martin recorded the song May 9, 1960 for his album, This Time I'm Swingin' (Capitol T-1442 (mono), ST-1442 (stereo)). It was later remastered in 2007 as a duet with smooth jazz trumpeter Chris Botti for Martin's album Forever Cool and Botti's Italia respectively.
* Johnny Mathis made his recording in 1957 for his album Warm.
* Susannah McCorkle - The People That You Never Get To Love (1981)
* Martine McCutcheon
* Brad Mehldau
* Matt Monro
* Wes Montgomery - Full House (Live at Tsubo, Berkeley, CA) (Riverside Records, 1962)
* Peter Nero
* Veronica Nunn
* [ Oscar the Grouch] did a parody of the song on Sesame Street, when he missed Cody playing in the mud
* Oscar Peterson
* Louis Prima and Keely Smith
* Ian Richardson
* Sonny Rollins (as "I've Grown Accustomed to Your Face")
* Edmundo Ros
* Mathilde Santing
* Rod Stewart
* Barbra Streisand, subsequently, on her 2016 album Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway, Streisand performs the song (combined with "I'll Be Seeing You" from the 1938 musical Right This Way), as a duet with actor Chris Pine.
* Tierney Sutton
* Pat Suzuki - Pat Suzuki (1958)
* James Taylor
* The Temptations
* Claude Thornhill and his orchestra
* McCoy Tyner
* Tim Warfield Quintet, 1997 release Gentle Warrior.
* Andy Williams

## In popular media

* In the film Thunderball, James Bond, while dancing with SPECTRE assassin Fiona Volpe, tells her “Strange as it may seem, I’ve grown accustomed to your face.”
* Cary Grant, in an extremely drunken state from an enforced imbibing of liquor in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest, 1959, briefly succeeds at crooning this melody, slurring the words, "I've grown accustomed to my Bourbon," as he is placed in the driving seat of a car.
* Cary Grant has this melody as introductory music from the orchestra, when he is there to introduce Sir Noël Coward for an honorary award at the 24th Tony Awards, 1970.
* Kermit the Frog performed this song several times during the 1950s, '60s and '70s, though at that time he was not yet a frog. In this case, the character wore a wig while lipsyncing to Rosemary Clooney's recording of the song, singing to a small creature that is covered entirely by a piece of cloth with a face drawn on it. As "she" sings, the creature eats the mask off its own head, revealing itself to be the Muppet character Yorick (from Sam and Friends). Kermit keeps singing though, even as Yorick tries to munch on his hand and later his leg. Later on, Brian Henson (son of Jim Henson, the original performer of Kermit) and Leslie Carrara-Rudolph recreated the famous sketch for the Henson Alternative Show Stuffed and Unstrung and at the D23 Expo, once again using the Rosemary Clooney soundtrack.
* Barbra Streisand performed several lines in her "Color Me Barbra Medley" from the TV special and album Color Me Barbra.
* Schroeder references the song's title in the Peanuts film "Is This Goodbye, Charlie Brown?" and states "Don't tell me I've grown accustomed to that face."
* Stewie Griffin sings his version in the Family Guy episode "Running Mates."
* Sideshow Bob sings his own version of this song ("The Very Reason That I Live") in The Simpsons (in the Season 14 episode The Great Louse Detective).
* Henry speaks this line to Eliza on Selfie episode 5, at the end of the episode.
* During coverage of the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981; ABC World News Tonight anchor Frank Reynolds, upon receiving what turned out to be an erroneous report that White House Press Secretary James Brady had died from a bullet wound to the face, recounted attending a roast with Brady a few days earlier where the song was sung (as "She's Grown Accustomed to My Face") before receiving word that Brady was in fact still alive.