📝 “What’s a beguine?”: A beguine is a slow, swaying dance with Caribbean roots that Porter folded into Broadway with “Begin the Beguine,” which premiered in Jubilee on October 12, 1935. Anniversary months feel like the perfect time to hear that nostalgic pulse again. The rhythm is gentle, the phrasing long, the mood hypnotic, perfect for a lyric that unfolds like a memory. Once you hear that pulse, you can spot Porteresque “beguine” cues in later arrangements and in film. Here is Artie Shaw in