Song Lyric Sunday

This week for Song Lyric Sunday, Jim Adams our host, has asked us to share a song we remember when we were growing up. My family loved music and with 2 older siblings there was always something on the record player. My parents liked the big bands of the day. My brother loved Fats Domino and my sister was into Elvis Presley. What I have chosen today is from a different genre. I have chosen a song that was first recorded many years before I was born but was rerecorded in 1961. This time with a doo wop sound and it was always playing in my house. I still love it! It is Blue Moon by The Marcels. As I went about finding the facts and history of this song, I discovered there was a most interesting backstory and who actually wrote the song was questionable. Read on!

The Song – A Controversy

Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart supposedly began writing this for the 1933 movie musical Hollywood Party, but it was cut from the film. The following year, it was used in Manhattan Melodrama – starring Clark Gable, William Powell and Myrna Loy – where it was performed by Shirley Ross in a nightclub scene. The song was originally called “The Bad in Every Man,” befitting the story of Gable’s kind-hearted criminal, but was rejected by MGM until it was re-worked as “Blue Moon.”

There was however controversy about who actually wrote the song. Below are a few exerpts from a daughter’s memoir who says that it was her father, Edward W. Roman, a then 17 year-old son of Polish immigrants, wrote the song in 1931. Click here to read the whole story if you’re interested. There was an eventual court settlement with Rogers and Hart.

Who Wrote Blue Moon?
Rodgers & Hart?
Not Really.
From the Memoir:

“. . .the history of ‘Blue Moon,’ for all of its known convolutedness and remarkableness, actually begins much earlier. Its unknown origins are even more remarkable and convoluted, and its agency lies at that very intersection of those final Hart lyrics being either his ‘simplest. . .or most banal.’”

“. . .the lyrics. . .weren’t written by Hart, nor was the melody penned by Rodgers. Rather, the song was composed in 1931 by a 17-year-old, the son of Polish immigrants, in Troy, on the East bank of the Hudson River in upstate New York. His name was Edward W. Roman.”

“I know because I am his daughter and because I have always known this story. It’s been part of my family for all of my growing-up years, the source of whispers about ‘that “Blue Moon” thing’ among the adults. . .a matter of curiosity among the more curious of the youngsters, of which I was perhaps the most curious.”

The Marcels

The Marcels were an American doo-wop group known for turning popular music songs into rock and roll. The group formed in 1959 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and signed to Colpix Records, with lead Cornelius Harp, bass Fred Johnson, Gene Bricker, Ron Mundy, and Richard Knauss. The group was named after a popular hair style of the day, the marcel wave, by Fred Johnson’s younger sister Priscilla.

In 1961 many were surprised to hear a new version of the ballad “Blue Moon”, that began with the bass singer saying, “bomp-baba-bomp” and “dip-da-dip.” The record sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. It is featured in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.

Producer Stu Phillips was ordered by his boss not to waste time on the Marcels and to spend his days devoted to a different artist at Colpix Records. But he didn’t say anything about his nights. Phillips waited until everyone else had gone home and sneaked the band into the studio for a secret session. They recorded this at the last minute when they recorded three songs and needed a fourth. When one of the members said he knew “Blue Moon,” Phillips told him to teach the song to the rest of the group in an hour, then they’d record it.

The introduction to the song was an excerpt of an original song the group had in its act – Phillips added it to “Blue Moon” to give it a flair the group was lacking in their other songs.

The Marcels recorded this in two takes. A promotion man asked and got a copy of the finished tape, which found its way to legendary DJ Murray The K. He promoted it as an “exclusive” and played it 26 times on one show.

Richard Rodgers hated the Marcels’ doo-wop arrangement of this song so much that he took out advertisements in the music papers urging people not to buy it. >>
This has been covered by a slew of artists, including Louis Armstrong, Tony Bennett, and Django Reinhardt.

The disc went to number one in the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, and UK Singles Chart.[5] In the U.S., additional revivals in the same vein as “Blue Moon” — “Heartaches” and “Melancholy Baby” — were less successful, although “Heartaches” peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 and eventually sold over one million copies worldwide.

In August 1961, due to problems encountered in the Deep South while touring because of the group being bi-racial, the white members, Knauss and Bricker left and were replaced by Allen Johnson (brother of Fred) and Walt Maddox. Mundy left soon after, leaving the group a quartet. In 1962, Harp and Allen Johnson left, and were replaced by Richard Harris and William Herndon. There was a brief reunion of the original members in 1973. The group made several recordings in 1975 with Harp back on lead. Original member Gene Bricker died in 1983. Allen Johnson died in 1995.

The Lyrics

(Ba-bom-a-bom-bom)
(Ba-bom-a-bom-bom)
(Ba-bom-a-bom-bom)
(Ba-dang-a-dang-dang)
(Ba-ding-a-dong-ding)

Blue moon, moon, moon, blue moon (dip-de-dip-dip)
Moon, moon, moon, blue moon (dip-de-dip-dip)
Moon, moon, moon, blue moon (dip-de-dip-dip)

(Ba-bom-a-bom-bom)
(Ba-bom-a-bom-bom)
(Ba-bom-a-bom-bom)
(Ba-dang-a-dang-dang)
(Ba-ding-a-dong-ding)

Blue moon (moon, moon, moon, blue moon)
You saw me standing alone (dip-de-dip-dip, moon, moon, moon, blue moon)
Without a dream in my heart (dip-de-dip-dip, moon, moon, moon, blue moon)
Without a love of my own (dip-de-dip-dip) (ba-bom-a-bom-bom)

(Ba-bom-a-bom-bom)
(Ba-bom-a-bom-bom)
(Ba-dang-a-dang-dang)
(Ba-ding-a-dong-ding)

Blue moon (moon, moon, moon, blue moon)
You knew just what I was there for (dip-de-dip-dip, moon, moon, moon, blue moon)
You heard me saying a prayer for (dip-de-dip-dip, moon, moon, moon, blue moon)
Someone I really could care for (dip-de-dip-dip, ooh ah, wow-wow-wow)

And then there suddenly appeared before me (do-do, doo, do-do, doo)
The only one my arms will ever hold (do-do, doo, do-do, doo)
I heard somebody whisper, "Please adore me" (do-do, doo, do-do, doo)
And when I looked, the moon had turned to gold, ooh (ahh)

Blue moon (moon, moon, moon, blue moon)
Now I'm no longer alone (dip-de-dip-dip, moon, moon, moon, blue moon)
Without a dream in my heart (dip-de-dip-dip, moon, moon, moon, blue moon)
Without a love of my own (dip-de-dip-dip)

(Ba-bom-a-bom-bom)
(Ba-bom-a-bom-bom)
(Ba-bom-a-bom-bom)
(Ba-dang-a-dang-dang)
(Ba-ding-a-dong-ding)

Ooh, ooh, ooh (dip-de-dip-dip, moon, moon moon, blue moon, moon, moon, blue moon)
(Dip-de-dip-dip, moon, moon, moon, blue moon)
(Moon, moon, moon, blue moon dip-de-dip-dip)

(Ba-bom-a-bom-bom)
(Ba-bom-a-bom-bom)
(Ba-bom-a-bom-bom)
(Ba-dang-a-dang-dang)
(Ba-ding-a-dong-ding blue moon)

Ahh, ahh, ahh (blue moon, moon, moon, blue moon)
(Dip-de-dip-dip, moon, moon, moon, blue moon)
(Dip-de-dip-dip, moon, moon, moon, blue moon)
(Dip-de-dip-dip)
(Ba-bom-a-bom-bom)
(Ba-bom-a-bom-bom)
(Ba-bom-a-bom-bom)
(Ba-dang-a-dang-dang)
(Ba-ding-a-dong-ding)

Blue moon

Writer/s: Lorenz Hart, Richard Rodgers
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind