Blue Moon (song)

"Blue Moon" is a classic popular song. It was written by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart in 1934, and has become a standard ballad. The song has been covered as a released single by artists such as Billie Holiday, Dean Martin, Mel Torme, Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Beady Eye, Frank Sinatra and Cliff Richard. In 1961 it became a doo-wop hit when recorded by The Marcels. The song has featured in musical films such as Grease.

Lyrics
The lyric presumably refers to an English idiomatic expression: "once in a blue moon" means "very rarely". (The origin of the expression is unclear; see article "blue moon"). The narrator of the song is relating a stroke of luck so unlikely that it must have taken place under a blue moon. The title relies on a play on words, since blue is also the colour of melancholy, and indeed the narrator is sad and lonely until he finds love. The song is noted for its ending with the exaggerated baritone "blue moon".

History
Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart were contracted to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in May 1933. They were soon commissioned to write the songs for Hollywood Party, a film that was to star many of the studio's top artists. Richard Rodgers later recalled, "One of our ideas was to include a scene in which Jean Harlow is shown as an innocent young girl saying—or rather singing—her prayers. How the sequence fitted into the movie I haven't the foggiest notion, but the purpose was to express Harlow's overwhelming ambition to become a movie star ('Oh Lord, if you're not busy up there,/I ask for help with a prayer/So please don't give me the air . . .')." The song was not even recorded and MGM Song #225 "Prayer (Oh Lord, make me a movie star)" dated June 14, 1933, was registered for copyright as an unpublished work on July 10, 1933.

Lorenz Hart wrote new lyrics for the tune to create a title song for the 1934 film Manhattan Melodrama: "Act One:/You gulp your coffee and run;/Into the subway you crowd./Don’t breathe, it isn’t allowed". The song, which was also titled "It's Just That Kind of Play", was cut from the film before release, and registered for copyright as an unpublished work on March 30, 1934. The studio then asked for a nightclub number for the film. Rodgers still liked the melody so Hart wrote a third lyric: "The Bad in Every Man" ("Oh, Lord . . . /I could be good to a lover,/But then I always discover/The bad in ev’ry man" ), which was sung by Shirley Ross. The song, which was also released as sheet music, was not a hit.

After the film was released by MGM, Jack Robbins—the head of the studio's publishing company —decided that the tune was suited to commercial release but needed more romantic lyrics and a punchier title. Hart was initially reluctant to write yet another lyric but he was persuaded. The result was "Blue moon/you saw me standing alone/without a dream in my heart/without a love of my own".

There is another verse that comes before the usual start of the song. Both Eric Clapton and Rod Stewart used it in their recent versions of the song. The last line of this extra verse is "Life was a bitter cup for the saddest of all men."

Robbins licensed the song to Hollywood Hotel, a radio program that used it as the theme. On January 15, 1935, Connee Boswell recorded it for Brunswick Records. It subsequently was featured in at least seven more MGM films including the Marx Brothers' At the Circus and Viva Las Vegas. Part of the song was in the musical Grease.

The Frank Sinatra recording of the song appears on the radio stations in the video game Fallout: New Vegas.

Strong similarities between Rodgers's melody and the opening of the 2nd movement of Sergei Taneyev's Piano Quartet in E, Op.20, published by Belaieff in 1907 have been noted.

Mel Tormé cover
Mel Tormé did a cover version of "Blue Moon" that reached the Billboard charts in 1949. It was released by Capitol Records as catalog number 15428. It first reached the Best Seller chart on April 8, 1949, and lasted five weeks on the chart, peaking at number 20. The record was a two-sided hit, as the flip side, "Again", also charted.

Elvis Presley cover
"Blue Moon"'s first crossover recording to rock and roll came from Elvis Presley in 1956. His cover version of the song was included on his self-titled debut album Elvis Presley.

In Jim Jarmusch's 1989 film "Mystery Train", the three distinct stories that make up the narrative are linked by a portion of Elvis Presley's version of "Blue Moon" (as heard on a radio broadcast) and a subsequent offscreen gunshot, which are heard once during each story, revealing that the three stories occur simultaneously in real time.

The Marcels' cover
The Marcels, a doo-wop group, also recorded the track for their album Blue Moon. In 1961, the Marcels had three songs left to record and needed one more. Producer Stu Phillips did not like any of the other songs except one that had the same chord changes as "Heart and Soul" and "Blue Moon". He asked them if they knew either, and one knew "Blue Moon" and taught it to the others, though with the bridge or release (middle section - "I heard somebody whisper...") wrong. The famous introduction to the song ("bomp-baba-bomp" and "dip-da-dip") was an excerpt of an original song that the group had in its act.

Reception
The record reached number one on the Billboard Pop chart for three weeks and number one on the R&B chart. It also peaked at #1 on the UK Singles Chart. The Marcels' version of "Blue Moon" sold a million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. It is featured in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. The Marcels doo-wop version is one of three different versions used in the 1981 film An American Werewolf in London. Their version of the song is referenced in the 1962 Academy Award nominated animated short Disney musical film, A Symposium on Popular Songs during the song, "Puppy Love Is Here to Stay" written by Robert & Richard Sherman.

Choral adaptations
A version suitable for performance by chamber choir arranged by David Blackwell is in the collection "In the Mood" published by Oxford University Press.