Blue Skies (Irving Berlin song)

History

The song was composed in 1926 as a last-minute addition to the Rodgers and Hart musical Betsy. Although the show ran for only 39 performances, "Blue Skies" was an instant success, with audiences on opening night demanding 24 encores of the piece from star Belle Baker. During the final repetition, Baker forgot her lyrics, prompting Berlin to sing them from his seat in the front row.

In 1927, the music was published and Ben Selvin's recorded version (as The Knickerbockers with vocals by Charles Kaley) was a hit. That same year, it became one of the first songs to be featured in a talkie, when Al Jolson performed it in The Jazz Singer. The song was recorded for all of the major and dime store labels of the time. A version was recorded by Benny Goodman and his Orchestra in 1935 (Victor 25136). 1946 was also a notable year for the song, with a Bing Crosby/Fred Astaire film taking its title along with two recorded versions by Count Basie and Benny Goodman reaching #8 and #9 on the pop charts, respectively.

In 1958, Ella Fitzgerald crossed genres putting her own distinctive scat jazz stylings on "Blue Skies" for her double-LP album, Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Irving Berlin Song Book, that year's installment in her famous eight-album Song Book series. The track was also included in that year's Ella compilation album, Get Happy!. In 1962 the song was released as a single by Johnny Rivers. In 1992, Al Jarreau recorded a version for the film adaptation of Glengarry Glen Ross.

The song was featured in Ann Marie Fleming's 2002 short film Blue Skies, performed by Alessandro Juliani.

Lyrics

:Blue skies, smilin' at me :Nothin' but blue skies do I see

:Bluebirds singing a song :Nothin' but bluebirds all day long

:Never saw the sun shinin' so bright :Never saw things lookin' so right :Noticin' the days hurryin' by :When you're in love, my how they fly

:Blue days, all of them gone :Nothin' but blue skies from now on

:Never saw the sun shinin' so bright :Never saw things lookin' so right :Noticin' the days hurryin' by :When you're in love, oh how they fly

:Blue days, all of them gone :Nothin' but blue skies from now on

Willie Nelson cover

| B-side = Moonlight in Vermont

Twenty years after Fitzgerald's cover, in 1978, Willie Nelson released another version of "Blue Skies", which became a #1 country music hit. This version harkened back to 1939, when it was a major western swing and country standard, performed by Moon Mullican.

Chart performance

Notes

References

1. [https://www.jazzstandards.com/compositions-1/blueskies.htm Blue Skies] at [http://www.jazzstandards.com/ jazzstandards.com] - retrieved on March 19, 2009
2. Laurence Bergreen, ''As Thousands Cheer: The Life of Irving Berlin'', 1996, p. 277.
3. "Blue Skies".
4. Andrew McIntosh, [https://cfe.tiff.net/canadianfilmencyclopedia/content/films/blue-skies "Blue Skies"]. ''[[Toronto International Film Festival. Canadian Film Encyclopedia]]''.