"Bess, You Is My Woman Now" is a duet with music by George Gershwin

George Gershwin

George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...

 and lyrics by Ira Gershwin

Ira Gershwin

Ira Gershwin was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs of the 20th century....

. This song comes from the Gershwins' opera Porgy and Bess

Porgy and Bess

Porgy and Bess is an opera, first performed in 1935, with music by George Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. It was based on DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy and subsequent play of the same title, which he co-wrote with his wife Dorothy Heyward...

(1935

1935 in music

-Events:*February 26 - Georges Bizet's Symphony in C is performed for the first time, under Felix Weingartner, in Basel, Switzerland*April 8 - Béla Bartók's String Quartet No. 5 is premiered in Washington, D.C....

) where it is sung by the main character Porgy and his beloved Bess. They express their love for each other and say that they now belong together.

The song has been covered a number of times by many artists since 1935. In 1959, Harry Belafonte

Harry Belafonte

Harold George "Harry" Belafonte, Jr. is an American singer, songwriter, actor and social activist. He was dubbed the "King of Calypso" for popularizing the Caribbean musical style with an international audience in the 1950s...

 recorded a duet with Lena Horne

Lena Horne

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was an American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer.Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the...

 on their album Porgy and Bess

Porgy and Bess (Harry Belafonte and Lena Horne album)

Porgy and Bess is an album by Harry Belafonte and Lena Horne, released by RCA Victor in 1959. It includes songs from George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess. Belafonte and Horne sing two songs together: "There's a Boat That's Leavin' Soon for New York" and "Bess, You Is My Woman Now"...

. Barbra Streisand

Barbra Streisand

Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...

 recorded this song on her The Broadway Album

The Broadway Album

The Broadway Album is the twenty-fourth studio album by director, composer, actress and singer Barbra Streisand, released by Columbia Records on November 4, 1985. Consisting mainly of classic show tunes, the album marked a major shift in Barbra Streisand's career. Streisand had spent ten years...

from 1985, named "I Loves You, Porgy/Porgy, I's Your Woman Now (Bess, You Is My Woman Now)".