"Make Believe" is a song featured in the 1951 film Show Boat with music composed by Jerome Kern and lyrics written by Oscar Hammerstein II. In the song, Gaylord Ravenal (Howard Keel) and Magnolia Hawks (Kathryn Grayson) meet by chance on the wharf and are instantly smitten. To abide by the laws of social propriety, they pretend to have known each other already.
Lyrics[]
Ravenal:
Only make believe I love you,
Only make believe that you love me
Others find peace of mind in pretending—
Couldn't you? Couldn't I? Couldn't we?
Make believe our lips are blending
In a phantom kiss, or two or three
Might as well make believe I love you,
For, to tell the truth, I do!
Magnolia:
The game of just supposing is the sweetest game I know
Our dreams are more romantic than the world we see
Ravenal:
And if the things we dream about don't happen to be so,
That's just an unimportant technicality
Magnolia:
Though the cold and brutal fact is
You and I have never met,
We need not mind convention's p's and q' s
If we put our thoughts in practice,
We can banish all regret,
Imagining most anything we choose
We could make believe I love you,
We could make believe that you love me
Both:
Others find peace of mind in pretending–
Couldn't you? Couldn't I? Couldn't we?
Ravenal:
Make believe our lips are blending
In a phantom kiss or two, or three
Both:
Might as well make believe I love you
For, to tell the truth, I do
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