You Don't Know What Love Is (song)

"You Don't Know What Love Is," a popular song of the Great American Songbook, was written by Don Raye (lyrics) and Gene de Paul (music) for the Abbott and Costello 1941 Universal picture Keep 'Em Flying, in which it was sung by Carol Bruce. The number was deleted prior to release.

Universal ended putting the song into the Raye/de Paul score of one of its B musicals, the 60-minute Behind the Eight Ball (1942), starring the Ritz Brothers and re-teaming Carol Bruce and Dick Foran from "Keep 'Em Flying." Here, "You Don't Know What Love Is" was again sung by Carol Bruce, in her third and final film until the 1980s. Bruce would find her greatest success on Broadway.

From such curious beginnings as an outtake in an A picture and an introduction in a B, both by the same singer, no one could have predicted that in later years the song would emerge as a masterpiece—a jazz standard to be recorded several hundreds of times, starting when Miles Davis and other jazz musicians began recording and playing the song in the 1950s.

The song also appears on the soundtrack to the film The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999).

Notable recordings

 * Chet Baker - Chet Baker Sings and Plays with Bud Shank, Russ Freeman & Strings (1955)
 * George Benson - Tenderly (1989)
 * Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers - Art Blakey!!!!! Jazz Messengers!!!!! (1961)
 * Eva Cassidy and Chuck Brown - The Other Side (1992)
 * John Coltrane - Ballads (1962)
 * Chris Connor - Witchcraft (1959)
 * Miles Davis All Stars - Walkin' (1954)
 * Eric Dolphy - The Latin Jazz Quintet (1961), Last Date (1964)
 * Billy Eckstine - with the Earl Hines Orchestra 1939; with B.E.Orchestra 1945; with MGM Orchestra 1952
 * Booker Ervin - Heavy!!! (1966)
 * Rachelle Ferrell - First Instrument (1995)
 * Ella Fitzgerald - (1941)
 * Diamanda Galás - You Don't Know What Love Is (2009)
 * Marvin Gaye - The Soulful Moods of Marvin Gaye (1961)
 * Roy Hargrove - Public Eye (1991)
 * Dick Haymes - The Complete Capitol Collection (2006)
 * Billie Holiday - Lady in Satin (1958)
 * Miki Howard - Can't Count Me Out (1997)
 * Keith Jarrett - Keith Jarrett at the Blue Note (1994)
 * Eyran Katsenelenbogen - It's Reigning Kats & Dogs & Bogen (2003)
 * Teddi King - In the Beginning, 1949-1954 (2000, compilation)
 * Lee Konitz with Joe Henderson - Duets (1968)
 * Wynton Marsalis - Standard Time, Vol. 2: Intimacy Calling (1991)
 * Helen Merrill - Parole e musica (1960)
 * Anita O'Day - An Evening with Anita O'Day (1956)
 * Stéphan Oliva / François Raulin - Tristano (1999)
 * Sonny Rollins - Saxophone Colossus (1956)
 * John Scofield - A Moment's Peace (2011)
 * Nina Simone - Nina Simone - Tribute to Billie Holiday (2008)
 * June Tabor - Some Other Time (1989)
 * Giorgia Todrani - Natural Woman (Live in Rome) (1993)
 * Lennie Tristano - The New Tristano (1960) Concert in Copenhagen (1965, released 1998)
 * Chucho Valdés - New Conceptions (2003)
 * Cassandra Wilson - Blue Light 'til Dawn (1993)
 * Jimmy Scott - "But Beautiful" (2002)
 * Teddy Charles and Wily Bo Walker - "You don't know what love is" (2011)