composed the melody more than 30 years earlier, under the title 鈥淪mile and Show Your Dimple,鈥� but never published it. Berlin pulled it out of his trunk in 1933 for the Broadway musical revue , which had the usual structure of being a "living newspaper." Each scene was presented as a different section of the paper. The show included other hits like 鈥淗eat Wave鈥� for the weather page, and 鈥淪upper Time鈥� for the hard news.
鈥淓aster Parade鈥� was used to illustrate the special color magazine section, which was then printed with a technique called 鈥渞otogravure,鈥� which is referred to in the lyric. The song uses as its setting New York City's tradition of people dressed in their churchgoing Easter morning best, promenading down Fifth Avenue.
The song was introduced by and on Broadway, and it was used in another film, 鈥淎lexander鈥檚 Ragtime Band鈥� (1938) before it became the title song of 鈥淓aster Parade.鈥�
It was one of several holiday-themed songs that Berlin wrote, also including 鈥淲hite Christmas鈥� and 鈥淕od Bless America鈥� (for July 4).
Here is a clip (below) of and singing it in 鈥淓aster Parade鈥�:
