"How Long Has This Been Going On?" was first used in Funny Face, the 1927 musical starring Fred and Adele Astaire. This was the show's love song, or more accurately, its love ballad. Gershwin later transplanted it into a new musical, Rosalie, for which both he and Sigmund Romberg provided music. Of the seven songs Gershwin contributed, this one became the best known. In the original version, it lasted five minutes or more, about twice the length of a typical Gershwin song. The first half was sung by a male lead and the last half by the female. But singers have typically performed the song in its truncated version, using only the music in the refrain. The song has a bluesy character in its lazy lyricism—a lyricism that in many ways augurs much of the style of Gershwin's greatest stage success, Porgy and Bess (1934-1935). Thematically the song is catchy and it is the music from the aforementioned refrain that is the most memorable, with the words "How long has this been going on?" serving as the hook (the catchy close to each phrase). The four verses of the refrain have an A-A-B-A structure, with the yearning B section offering deft contrast to the calmer, sensuous music in the A sections.

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