Origin:

Introduced in the 1942 film You Were Never Lovelier.

Style:

Usually taken as a ballad, or at a comfortable medium tempo.

Form:

A-B-C (36 Bars) [16-8-12]

Verse:

A-B-C (24 Bars) [8-8-8]

Virtually never included in performances, the original theatrical recording from You Were Never Lovelier is one of the only renditions to include it.

Key:

Originally introduced in Eb Major, it is also commonly played in F.

Harmony/Overview:

The harmony of this composition is functional and very much in line with other leading standards of its day. The main theme in the A section is  centered around a I - VI - II - V in the home key. In bar 5 the melody  lands on the 4th while the root remains on the tonic, so when voicing the chord in this instance the 3rd is almost always omitted to avoid any  dissonance. Lead sheets will often convey this with different changes;  IV6/I and VIIdim7/I being the most common. The harmony then continues  with a minor II - V to VI which leads to a II - V of V before a final II  - V returns to the tonic. The B section begins very similarly to A, although after just a few bars a II - V of III modulates to III Major for the remainder of the section. The harmony inches upwards  diatonically through III Major before arriving at bIIdim7 in the original key, which then leads to the final II - V back to the tonic  which concludes the section. The final C section is also straight-ahead;  elongating what would have been another 8 bar section to be 16 with the common harmonic device of #IVmi7b5 - IVmi6.

Recordings:

This song has been recorded over 345 times to date. It was first introduced in the 1942 film You Were Never Lovelier by Fred Astaire and Rita Heyworth, with Nan Wynn dubbing the female vocal.  It quickly gained popularity amongst vocalists, and Coltrane's seminal  recording from his 1957 album Blue Train helped to solidify it as a standard amongst instrumentalists.

JGC Top Picks:

John Coltrane, Blue Train, 1957

Paul Desmond, Pure Desmond, 1974

Bill Charlap Trio, I'm Old Fashioned, 2015