George Gershwin described the song as an effort "to get the effect of a Viennese waltz in foxtrot time" with Ira relating that the lyric took "days and days" to write due to its many internal rhymes. Ira felt the song was a "waltz effect in foxtrot" with "short and definite" musical phrases.[1]
The song was introduced by Gertrude Lawrence and Paul Frawley as the characters Ann Wainwright and Neil Forrester in the 1928 musical Treasure Girl, where it was featured as a duet in the first act.[1][2] It is sung when the characters encounter each other for the first time in the musical, the pair having formerly been lovers.[3] Lawrence Delbert Stewart, writing in The Gershwins: Words Upon Music, wrote that "Oh, So Nice!" was "so lovely...that one finds it difficult to believe that Miss Lawrence's role portrayed her as a malicious liar and a spoiled young woman".[1] Walter Rimler, in his A Gershwin Companion: A Critical Inventory & Discography describes the verse as "evocative and beautiful".[4]The New Yorker magazine described it as "effortlessly lovely" in 1959.[5]Howard Pollack felt the song was reminiscent of the Gershwin's earlier songs "Clap Yo' Hands" and "Let's Kiss and Make Up" through its attempt to capture a Viennese waltz in to a foxtrot tempo.[3] Pollock praised the song's "unprecedented suavity" with its "subtle metrical shifts throughout its main theme".[3] Pollock felt the melody of "Oh, So Nice!" was reminiscent of "Ohne mich" from Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier.[3]
Edward Jablonski felt that it was one of the "outstanding songs" from Treasure Girl along with "I've Got a Crush on You", "I Don't Think I'll Fall in Love Today" and "Where's the Boy?".[6]
