Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone (song)

"Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone" was written by Sam H. Stept with lyrics by Sidney Clare. The original publication also credited singer Bee Palmer as co-composer. The song was published in 1930. The chorus uses virtually the same chord sequence as the 1925 composition "Has Anybody Seen My Gal?". The lyrics are an admonishment between parting lovers, where the singer asks the other to either speak nicely of her, or not at all.

A diverse group of performers have recorded this jazz standard over the years, including The Mills Brothers, Willie Nelson, Frank Sinatra, Rita Reys, Dean Martin, Ray Price, Sammy Davis, Jr, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ann-Margret, Bob Wills, Piano Red, Billie Holiday, and Bill Haley & His Comets, a duet between Harry Connick, Jr. and Carmen McRae, Leon Redbone, and as recently as 2007 by Manteca Beat and by The Original Rabbit Foot Spasm Band in 2009. Television anchor Edwin Newman sang the song during his hosting of Saturday Night Live in 1984.

This song is sung by Norma Shearer's character Mary Haines in the 1939 film The Women as a joke when she leaves her girl friends alone at tea while she takes a call from her philandering husband Stephen Haines.

In the Disney animated film Bambi, Thumper's mother echoes the lyrical advice, "If you can't say anything real nice, it's better not to talk at all".

The song was also sung by the character Michigan J. Frog in the 1955 Warner Bros. animated short One Froggy Evening.

This song is also featured on Ella Fitzgerald's 1979 performance with Count Basie & His Orchestra, A Perfect Match.

In August 2007, a recording of the song with Dean Martin and Robbie Williams was released. Jamie Cullum also performed the song on the last Michael Parkinson chat show in December 2007.