If you’re blue and you
Don’t know where to go to,
Why don’t you go where Harlem sits,
Puttin’ on the Ritz?

These lines are from Irving Berlin’s song “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” written in 1927 at the height of the Jazz Age. The lyric evokes Harlem as a nightlife destination and reflects the era’s fascination with urban glamour, fashionable display, and the cultural prominence of Harlem entertainment during the Harlem Renaissance. The song quickly became a popular standard and was widely performed and recorded; it was also featured in the 1930 film “Puttin’ on the Ritz.” The quoted stanza comes from the opening verse, which sets up the song’s invitation to shake off melancholy by going out to see (and join) stylish crowds.

The speaker offers a jaunty remedy for sadness (“If you’re blue”): go to where style, music, and spectacle are concentrated. “Puttin’ on the Ritz” functions as shorthand for dressing up and performing sophistication—turning life into a kind of public stage. The mention of Harlem ties that performance to a specific cultural geography associated with nightlife and modernity in the 1920s. At the same time, the lyric exemplifies Berlin’s knack for catchy, conversational phrasing that converts social observation into an upbeat invitation. Read today, it also prompts attention to how popular songs of the period packaged and marketed images of Harlem for mass audiences.

“If you’re blue and you don’t know where to go to / Why don’t you go where fashion sits, / Puttin’ on the Ritz?”