Search Tips: 1) Click "Find on This Page" button to activate page search box. 2) When searching for a name (e.g. a songwriter), enter last name only. 3) When searching for a song title on the catalog page, omit an initial "The" or "A". 4) more search tips.
Portions of this page have not yet been completed. Thank you for your patience.
"Fly Me to the Moon" (originally titled ''In Other Words'') was introduced in 1954 by the cabaret singer Felicia Sanders at the chic New York Nightclub The Blue Angel where Bart Howard was host and became a hit after Peggy Lee sang it on ''The Ed Sullivan Show'' in October 1960, Kaye Ballard made the first recording and Joe Harnell recorded a bossa nova instrumental version in 1962. It was Lee who suggested to Howard that the title should be the memorable line from the
refrain, "Fly Me to the Moon."
Rosemary Clooney had recorded Howard's song "On the First Warm Day (in May)" in 1951, which was a big break for the young songwriter, but it was "Fly Me to the Moon" that interested most singers and really put him on the map. According to James Gavin in his book Intimate: Nights The Golden Age of New York Cabaret, Howard wrote "Fly Me to the Moon" "in response to his publisher's plea for a simpler song: why did he have to write such grandiloquent lyrics? 'In Other Words" talked about the verbosity of poets who 'use many words to say a simple thing'; 'hold my hand,' 'Kiss me.'"
The New York Times in it's obituary for Howard, quoted him from an interview in 1988 as saying about "Fly Me to the Moon, "''I've always said it took me 20 years to find out how to write a song in 20 minutes' . . . . The song just fell out of me. One publisher wanted me to change the lyric to 'take me to the moon.' Had I done that I don't know where I'd be today.''
Gavin also reports that Howard used his position at the Blue Angel to good advantage in promoting his songs including "Fly Me to the Moon" about which Howard recalled:
I used to keep copies of it at the Blue Angel. . . . I just kept throwing them out to people. In those days all the young singers were given record contracts to see if any of them surfaced, and they all did my song. They thought it was so chic (Gavin, p. 91).
Submit comments on songs, songwriters, performers, etc.
Feel free to suggest an addition or correction.
Please read our Comments Guidelines before making a submission. (Posting of comments is subject to the guidelines.
Not all comments will be posted.)
Credits for Videomakers of custom videos used on this page:
No videos currently appear on this page.
Borrowed material (text): The sources of all quoted and paraphrased text are cited. Such content is used under the rules of fair use to further the educational objectives of CafeSongbook.com. CafeSongbook.com makes no claims to rights of any kind in this content or the sources from which it comes.
Borrowed material (images): Images of CD, DVD, book and similar product covers are used courtesy of either Amazon.com or iTunes/LinkShare with which CafeSongbook.com maintains an affiliate status. All such images are linked to the source from which they came (i.e. either iTunes/LinkShare or Amazon.com).
Any other images that appear on CafeSongbook.com pages are either in the public domain or appear through the specific permission of their owners. Such permission will be acknowledged in this space on the page where the image is used.
For further information on Cafe Songbook policies with regard to the above matters, see our "About Cafe Songbook" page (link at top and bottom of every page).
The Cafe Songbook
Record/Video Cabinet: Selected Recordings of
"Fly Me to the Moon"
(All Record/Video Cabinet entries
below
include a music-video
of this page's featured song.
The year given is for when the studio
track was originally laid down
or when the live performance was given.)
Performer/Recording Index
(*indicates accompanying music-video)
Performer 1 (year)
Performer 2 (year)
Year Artist
album: title
Music-Video
Amazon
iTunes
Notes: (Please complete or pause one
video before starting another.)
or