To Thread - Forum Home

The Mudcat Café TM
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=118348
20 messages

Query re lyrics in Blue Moon - 'will ever hold'??

04 Feb 09 - 07:50 PM (#2557476)
Subject: Query re lyrics in Blue Moon'
From: JennieG

The choir I sing with is learning an arrangement of the Rogers and Hart song "Blue Moon", but we are having a dispute with some of the lyrics. In the bridge we are singing:
"And then there suddenly appeared before me
The only one my arms WILL ever hold"

whereas a couple of us who have been singing the song forever (probably picked up from the radio in years gone by) think it should be
"And then there suddenly appeared before me
The only one my arms WOULD ever hold"

Does anyone in Mudcatville have access to the original sheet music to solve this? The pedants in The Bright Star Singers of Sydney, Oz, would be forever grateful.

Cheers
JennieG


04 Feb 09 - 08:05 PM (#2557486)
Subject: RE: Query re lyrics in Blue Moon'
From: katlaughing

According to THIS is it will ever hold. Sorry.:-)


04 Feb 09 - 08:10 PM (#2557493)
Subject: RE: Query re lyrics in Blue Moon'
From: Leadfingers

Sinatra and Ella sang 'will' - Elvis didnt sing that middle eight , and The Marcels rewrote the whole thing ! I
My Antique 'Thousand Standard Tunes - West Coast Edition' has 'will'
as well . Copyright 1934 !!


04 Feb 09 - 08:24 PM (#2557503)
Subject: RE: Query re lyrics in Blue Moon'
From: JennieG

Thanks Kat, that's the sort of info I was after. As a choir I suppose we all need to sing the same word at the same time or it can sound a bit off!

But I will probably still sing "would" when I'm on my own.....

Cheers
JennieG


04 Feb 09 - 08:43 PM (#2557524)
Subject: RE: Query re lyrics in Blue Moon'
From: Joe Offer

I posted definitive lyrics in this thread (click) drawn from two very reliable sources. Both sources say "will ever hold" (but I' like "would" better).
-Joe-


04 Feb 09 - 08:54 PM (#2557534)
Subject: RE: Query re lyrics in Blue Moon'
From: M.Ted

The word is "will" according to "The Complete Lyrics of Lorenz Hart", edited by Dorothy Hart. Being family, I suspect that her word is the final word.


04 Feb 09 - 11:13 PM (#2557618)
Subject: RE: Query re lyrics in Blue Moon'
From: GUEST,leeneia

Thanks for bringing this up, Jennie. I'm going to see how 'Blue Moon' sounds on a fretted dulcimer.

When I was a kid, there was an idiotic version of 'Blue Moon' on the radio, and I thought the song was junk. Now I've listened to a MIDI and looked at the words and I see it has potential.

Thanks, all.


04 Feb 09 - 11:22 PM (#2557629)
Subject: RE: Query re lyrics in Blue Moon'
From: GUEST,Allen In or even On Oz

Jennie

The 1001 Song book has it as " will" ever hold

An impeccable source if ever there was one

Elaine sings it as " will" so that is good enough for Blind Willy Foggin and I .

Best wishes

AD


05 Feb 09 - 12:14 AM (#2557655)
Subject: RE: Query re lyrics in Blue Moon'
From: katlaughing

I don't know if I ever knew all of the words, but I do remember I was first violin in a string quartet in junior high and we played this at a Rotarian businessmen's luncheon one time. Probably sounded as schmaltzy as the popular radio one leeneia mentions.:-)


05 Feb 09 - 12:58 AM (#2557671)
Subject: RE: Query re lyrics in Blue Moon'
From: Joe Offer

I think the doo-wop version of the song is a classic, and I've heard many good "jazz vocal" renditions. Yes, there are some crummy interpretations, but I think the song itself is a gem.
-Joe-


05 Feb 09 - 03:51 AM (#2557721)
Subject: RE: Query re lyrics in Blue Moon'
From: Genie

Bit of music trivia:

Did you folks know that the Lorenz Hart lyrics to the classic "Blue Moon" are the THIRD set of lyrics to be put to Richard Rodgers's tune? (I learned this from an NPR program about a decade ago.)    The melody was released twice in the 1920s with other (and more complex) lyrics, and it flopped both times. Third time was the charm, I guess. Anyway, Hart's exquisitely simple lyrics finally met their rightful mate in Rodgers's tune -- ca. 1925 if I recall correctly. (I was just a little kid at the time. *g*) And the rest is classic song history.

Genie


05 Feb 09 - 05:25 AM (#2557766)
Subject: RE: Query re lyrics in Blue Moon'
From: Big Al Whittle

I don't know when I first met the song. I know that I already knew it, aged eight when Harpo Marx played it in the film At the Circus.

I don't think I ever noticed the words til Bob Dylan put it on 'Self Portrait'.


05 Feb 09 - 05:39 AM (#2557771)
Subject: RE: Query re lyrics in Blue Moon'
From: Will Fly

The Marcels version was a huge hit in the UK in 1961. I was 17 and a whole gang of us would gather in the school art classroom at break time and try and copy it - very unsuccessfully!


05 Feb 09 - 03:15 PM (#2558251)
Subject: RE: Query re lyrics in Blue Moon'
From: GUEST,leeneia

I've tried it on the dulcimer. It's a keeper.

Will Fly, you and I have different reactions for music. That version you like is the one I thought embarrassingly awful as a teen.


05 Feb 09 - 05:49 PM (#2558410)
Subject: RE: Query re lyrics in Blue Moon'
From: Will Fly

Different strokes, Leeneia, different strokes... :-)

I've been a huge fan of black America's music since I was in my teens - from blues to jazz to doo-wop, from ragtime to swing. The Marcels - still going many years later - were one link in a chain of music made by vocal groups: gospel groups like the Dixie Hummingbirds and the Blind Boy of Alabama; smoother sounds like the Drifters, the Swallows, the Five Royales, etc.; gutsy sounds like Hank Ballard & The Midnighters (The Twist); and on and on. Wonderful music with superb vocals, punchy rhythms, emotion, feeling. I could rant on for ever! :-)

Thinks... I must get out my King Records box set again...


05 Feb 09 - 06:37 PM (#2558444)
Subject: RE: Query re lyrics in Blue Moon'
From: Cool Beans

I saw the Marcels a couple years ago during halftime at a Wayne State University football game in Detroit. They sang "Blue Moon" pretty well and also performed a bunch of Motown songs adequately. I've always liked their version of "Blue Moon," especially the final two notes, way down low.


06 Feb 09 - 03:44 AM (#2558733)
Subject: RE: Query re lyrics in Blue Moon'
From: Will Fly

Indeed - Blue MO-OO-ON... I always get a thrill from the final lines, sung with just "Aah" as the vocal, but with electrifying harmony.


06 Feb 09 - 05:19 PM (#2559447)
Subject: RE: Query re lyrics in Blue Moon'
From: JennieG

Ah yes.....one of the men and I sort of suggested doing the Marcels' version of Blue Moon, but our choir director wasn't having it....pity.....

Our version isn't bad but it's a bit - nice. Still, it's music!

Cheers
JennieG


06 Feb 09 - 05:52 PM (#2559486)
Subject: RE: Query re lyrics in Blue Moon'
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

Can't beat Connee Boswell's original.

Du wop- humpf!


07 Feb 09 - 05:23 PM (#2560334)
Subject: RE: Query re lyrics in Blue Moon'
From: GUEST,Allen in Oz

Jennie

What a bunch of old fogies they are !

Ask them if they could do the Marcel Marceau version ...that night liven them up

AD

ps .. See you soon at Toon bloody Gabbie

ad