Lyr/Chords Req: One for My Baby (Mercer, Arlen)

Subject: Chord Req: One for My Baby
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 27 May 06 - 12:15 PM

I've been tearing my hair out (what's left of it), looking for the chords for One for My Baby (and one more for the road).

If there is any difference in the chords, I'm especially interested in them as performed by Bob Gibson, but any set would probably do me.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: Chord ADD: One for My Baby (Mercer/Arlen)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 27 May 06 - 01:46 PM

Well, Dave, this is from Hal Leonard's Best Fake Book Ever, and it has chords I've never heard of.
-Joe-


One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)
(Lyric by Johnny Mercer, Music by Harold Arlen, 1943)
from the motion picture The Sky's the Limit

It's quarter to three, there's no one in the place
Except you and me,
So, set 'em' up Joe, I've got a little story
You oughta know.

We're drinking my friend, to the end
Of a brief episode
Make it one for my baby
And one more for the road

I got the routine, so drop another nickel
In the machine,
I'm feelin' so bad, I wish you'd make the music
Dreamy and sad,

Could tell you a lot, But you've got to be
True to your code,
Make it one for my baby
And one more for the road.

You'd never know it, but buddy I'm a kind of poet
And I've gotta lot of things to say,
And when I'm gloomy, you simply gotta listen to me
Until it's talked away.

Well, that's how it goes, and Joe I know you're getting
Anxious to close,
So, thanks for the cheer,
I hope you didn't mind
My bending your ear

This torch that I've found, must be drowned
Or it might explode,
Make it one for my baby
And one more for the road,
That long, long road.

---

        Eb6       Ebmaj7         Eb6
  It's quarter to three, there's no one in the place
  Fm7 Eb6        EbMAJ7  Eb9
  Except you and me,
       Eb6        Ebmaj7    Eb6              Fm7
  So, set 'em' up Joe, I've got a little story
  Eb6         Bbm7    Eb9
  You oughta know.
  
         Ab6         Abmaj7 Ab6     Ab9
  We're drinking my friend, to the end
  Eb6
  Of a brief episode
  G7#5                Ebm6
  Make it one for my baby
       Fm7          Bb11 Eb6
  And one more for the road
  
     G           Bm       G              D7
  I got the routine, so drop another nickel
  G           Gmaj7     G7
  In the machine,
  
       G          Bm     G                      D7
  I'm feelin' so bad, I wish you'd make the music
  G           Dm7    G7
  Dreamy and sad,
  
          C         Em7  C          C9
  Could tell you a lot, But you've got to be
  G
  True to your code,
          B7#5       Gm6
  Make it one for my baby
      Am7
  And one more for the road.
  
         Gm7   C7          Gm7         Cdim7   C9
  You'd never know it, but buddy I'm a kind of poet
           B7#5   E9     D11       G   Am7
  And I've gotta lot of things to say,
      Gm7       C7          Gm7          Cdim7  C9
  And when I'm gloomy, you simply gotta listen to me
     Gm7      Eb9     D7#5
  Until it's talked away.
  
         G             Bm        G                    D7
  Well, that's how it goes, and Joe I know you're getting
  G            Gmaj7   G7
  Anxious to close,
       G          Bm           G                   D7
  So, thanks for the cheer, I hope you didn't mind My
  G            Dm7    G7
  bending your ear
  
          C             Em7     C          C9
  This torch that I've found, must be drowned
         G
  Or it might explode,
  
          B7#5       Gm6
  Make it one for my baby
      Am7               B7#5  E7b9
  And one more for the road.
  A7    Am7   D7b9 G       G6
  That long, long road.

Subject: RE: Chord Req: One for My Baby
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 27 May 06 - 07:40 PM

Joe,

Thank you very much for the transcription of this great old song. I used to have it memorized and loved to sing it, but I never knew it had the last three verses!

Always something new to learn on the 'Cat...

Lin

Subject: RE: Chord Req: One for My Baby
From: Joe Offer
Date: 27 May 06 - 09:27 PM

i suppose it's heresy to some, but I got to like this and many other "old chestnuts" by listening to the Willie Nelson recordings. This one's on the One For the Road CD that Willie made with Leon Russell.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: lyr/Chord Req/ADD: One for My Baby
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 27 May 06 - 10:34 PM

YES! I knew I'd heard Willie sing it. Unfortunately, my copy of One for the Road is on cassette, not CD, so I haven't listened to it in a very long time. Thanks again, Joe.

Lin

Subject: RE: lyr/Chord Req/ADD: One for My Baby
From: cptsnapper
Date: 28 May 06 - 12:58 AM

You can also find a transcription on http://www.theguitarguy.com/

Subject: RE: lyr/Chord Req/ADD: One for My Baby
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 28 May 06 - 12:32 PM

To me, this is one of the "only one singer can do it right" songs.

Namely, Bob Gibson. He would start out a set with it, with a pitch dark, black stage. Then you'd hear the banjo, with a slow and repetitive BING bong, BING bong, BING bong sequence, which you'd realize was a clock ticking. Suddenly a tight pin spot on Bob's face, all else dark, and he'd sing, "Quarter to three.. No-one in the place, except you and me. So set 'em up, Joe. Can't you make the music dreamy and slow?"

Yes, I know, those are not the words as set forth above. Gibson did it a little differently--a little better. No, a LOT better. SO dejected, SO contemplative, SO sad!
--
I've reconstructed Gibson's text, which was VERY close to what I give below. I've asterisked the lines where I note the lyrics are different in his version.

One for My Baby

*Quarter to three,
There's no one in the place except you and me
So set em up, Joe
*Can't you make the music dreamy and slow
*I'm drinking my friend
To the end of a brief episode
So make it one for my baby
And one more for the road

*I got the routine
*Put another nickel in the machine
I'm feeling so bad
Wont you make the music easy and sad

*I could tell you a lot
*But that's not in a gentleman's code
So make it one for my baby
And one more for the road

*I may not show it
*But buddy, I'm a kind of poet
And I've got a lot of things to say
*When I gets gloomy, ya gotta listen to me
*Till I'm all talked away

Well, that's how it goes
And Joe, I know you're gettin' anxious to close
So thanks for the cheer
I hope you didn't mind me
Bending your ear

*But this torch that I found
*It's gotta be drowned
*Or it soon might explode
So make it one for my baby
And one more for the road

*Make it one for my baby
*And one more for the road.

The differences may mean nothing to anyone else, but they make ALL the difference, to me!

I can't listen to anyone else sing this. And absolutely not Frank Sinatra, who had a compulsion to jazz it up and "be hip".

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: lyr/Chord Req/ADD: One for My Baby
From: M.Ted
Date: 28 May 06 - 02:51 PM

Don't diss Ol' Blue Eyes--this is a jazz song, not a folk song;-)

Any way, you should be able to figure out some playable chords by trimming down what is posted above.

It will help if you mark them out, measure for measure-a lot of the "fancy chords" look to just provide a bit of ornamentation for the turnarounds, so if you figure out where the phrases begin and end, you can figure out what goes and stays.

I never worked this song up, either as a jazz or folk thing, but it sounds to me like, stripped down to the essentials, it is really just a simple blues vamp, with a bit of key change in a couple places--

Subject: RE: lyr/Chord Req/ADD: One for My Baby
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 28 May 06 - 04:42 PM

I disagree that it's a jazz song. Not a folk song either, of course. It's a song from a movie, a popular song. Gibson had it right (by me).

In any case, regardless of this song, Sinatra had an irritating habit of ignoring the feel of a song in order to put in his hip licks.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: lyr/Chord Req/ADD: One for My Baby
From: Joe Offer
Date: 28 May 06 - 06:24 PM

Dave, what Bob Gibson album is it on? It a Gibson recording of the song available on a CD?
-Joe-

Subject: RE: lyr/Chord Req/ADD: One for My Baby
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 28 May 06 - 06:51 PM

Damfino. Dick Greenhaus might know. My exposure to Bob Gibson is based on personal appearances, back in I suppose the 60s.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: lyr/Chord Req/ADD: One for My Baby
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 29 May 06 - 09:05 AM

Ken Colyer did a great version too (with his jazz band, not his skiffle group).

RtS

Subject: RE: lyr/Chord Req/ADD: One for My Baby
From: Mark Clark
Date: 29 May 06 - 10:26 AM

I'm not sure that being used in a movie necessarily disqualifies a song as being jazz. Seems to me I've heard lots of jazz tunes composed as movie themes. One For My Baby was composed by Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen, a duo not entirely unknown for jazz compositions.

Hal Leonard has an online sheet music sales site called Sheet Music Direct—it requires the free Sebelius Scorch viewer—that lets you search for music and view the first page before purchase. The Hal Leonard site includes a complete score for One For My Baby and though the site lets you display and buy the song in any key you'd like, the default key is C.

Skipping the introduction and going measure by measure, the chords start out as:

  C6                   G9sus
   It's quarter to three ____
  
  C6                     Fm6
   there's no one in the place
  
  C6         Dm7
    'cept you and me,____
  
  Em7     D#dim7     G7/D
  .    .    .    .    .    .
  
  C6              G7
   so set 'em up, Joe._____
  
  C6             Fm6
   I got a little story_____
  
  C6            Gm7
    I think you should know._____
  

But I'm guessing that the chords have been derived from the piano score rather than composed as a starting place.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: lyr/Chord Req/ADD: One for My Baby
From: M.Ted
Date: 29 May 06 - 04:19 PM

The chords printed above aren't the right ones, even for a jazz arrangement--and this is true quite often for Hal Leonard song books, and for sheet music and published compilations in general.

I've got a couple other sets of chords to work from, and I am in the process of working up an arrangement that is playable--but I can't sit down with it today because I've got other work.(This in spite of Dave's dismissal of Frank)

This song is difficult to get a handle on because it has a very peculiar structure--ABCB--with A and B being 16 bars and C being only 8 bars-

I always mark out measures in my chord charts, as opposed to the "paste above the lyrics" techinique, because that leaves you guessing as to the number of counts for each chord, and, in the case of this song, leaves you floundering even as to the number of measures.

As far as "folk" and "jazz", back in the great folk scare, a lot of folks did jazz tunes, back-constructed to folk--which is what this was--Mercer was a jazz performer, in addition to being a songwriter, and wrote that way--

Subject: RE: lyr/Chord Req/ADD: One for My Baby
From: Mark Clark
Date: 29 May 06 - 06:07 PM

I really understand what you're saying about Hal Leonard. I wanted a score for Somewhere My Love (Lara's Theme) and they have it in 4/4 time.

Among the upsetting things about Hal Leonard is that if you bought a book that they published that contained the tune, it would probably be wrong as well … possibly in a new and creative way. Hal Leonard is big on copyrights but not so big on accurate, faithful scores.

When looking for a canonical progression I usually go to the Jazz Chord Charts - Real Book site but they don't have a chart for One For My Baby.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: lyr/Chord Req/ADD: One for My Baby
From: M.Ted
Date: 29 May 06 - 07:13 PM

Go to Songtrellis working musician type chords, as well(realbook is great, but has a relatively small number of things) also check Ralph Patt's Vanilla Chord Book, which gets down to the basic, unornimented, simple turn-around stuff that you can build on(or not, depending on tastes)--OFMB at songtrellis is still a bit fancy for what Uncle Dave wants, though--

Hal Leonard, and music publishers in general, have someone paste in chords as an afterthought, usually based vaguely on what's written in the piano score--the chord fingerings are just random-

Subject: RE: lyr/Chord Req/ADD: One for My Baby
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 31 May 06 - 01:04 AM

I posted the lyrics to ONE FOR MY BABY in the thread Metasongs, songs within songs, all because Ron Kavana quoted the phrase "set 'em up, Joe" in his song MIDNIGHT ON THE WATER.

Subject: RE: lyr/Chord Req/ADD: One for My Baby
From: GUEST,Chirs
Date: 31 May 06 - 05:35 PM

I think Robbie Williams' version is very good...

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: One for My Baby (Mercer, Arlen)
From: M.Ted
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 03:49 PM

Here are chords to the song in the key of C--jazz chording simplified, and the key change, which, although it is written into the song, is an arrangement thing, and not needed for the integrity of the melody--they work--they are my own, though, and not adapted from any other arrangement, because I couldn't find anything--Remember when Frank Sinatra and John Denver shared a bill? Imagine JD doing this song, and you'll have it--

C Bb7/ (7x)
C C7/
F/Fm7/
C Dm7/Em7 A7/
D7 G7/C C/


C Bb7/ (7x)
C C7/
F/Fm7/
C Dm7/Em7 A7/
D7 G7/C C/
(Bridge)
Cm7 F7/ Cm7 F7/
Em7 A7/D7 G7/C C /
Cm7 F7/ Cm7 F7/
Em Em7/ G7 G7/

C Bb7/ (7x)
C C7/
F/Fm7/
C Dm7/Em7 A7/
D7 G7/C C/


You can play that Bb as a three finger barre--Just slap the ring finger across the D G B strings on the third fret—and you rock back and forth between the c and bflat the way you do in a song like "On Broadway"

The Cm7 can be played with just three fingers—

X-3-x-3-4-x

And the F7 you can move that finger position down a string and over two frets--

1-x-1-2-x-x-

That is about as simple as I can get it—

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: One for My Baby (Mercer, Arlen)
From: M.Ted
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 11:50 AM

Sorry, I put an extra measure in the bridge--it should be:

(Bridge)
Cm7 F7/ Cm7 F7/
Em7 A7 D7 G7/C C /
Cm7 F7/ Cm7 F7/
Em Em7/ G7 G7/

The third measure, in the second line, has four chords, with a chord change on every beat--I turned it into two measures above--

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: One for My Baby (Mercer, Arlen)
From: Flash Company
Date: 01 Jul 06 - 09:48 AM

Lyric for today_

It's a quarter to three,
There's no one in the place but just you and me,
So stick 'em up, Joe.......

Fc

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: One for My Baby (Mercer, Arlen)
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Jan 10 - 10:39 AM

Hey Dave Osterreich,
Wo bis du.
Dave, Listen very closely to Sinatra. Your * astericks
noting Bob Gibsons liberties with the Original Lyrics
are EXACTLY like, Sinatra's.. Try Utube with Sinatra
and Prove me Wrong.
Bruce Hussmann
Alles fur Deutschland
Ein, Folk,ein Reich, und Ein Fuhrer ! Ja

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: One for My Baby (Mercer, Arlen
From: autoharper
Date: 03 Jan 10 - 12:58 PM

It is worth remembering that, like many of the greatest songwriters, Johnny Mercer could neither read or write music. He would have been unable to sing or name the notes in an Cm7 chord (yet he wrote such great melodies as "Dream" and "Something's Gotta Give").

What I love most about the lyric for "One For My Baby" is that the protagonist never actually gets around to telling the bartender one word about the relationship or its ending - - so true to life.

Mercer, married to another woman, wrote this song about his feelings for Judy Garland.

-Adam Miller