DESCRIPTION:
"Stars Fell on Alabama" is the title of a 1934 jazz standard composed by Frank Perkins with lyrics by Mitchell Parish. One of the earliest recordings was by the Guy Lombardo orchestra, with his brother Carmen doing a vocal. This version was recorded on August 27, 1934, and issued by Decca Records as catalog number 104.

The title refers to a spectacular occurrence of the Leonid meteor shower that had been observed in Alabama in November of 1833, "the night the stars fell." As reported by the Florence Gazette: "[There were] thousands of luminous bodies shooting across the firmament in every direction. There was little wind and not a trace of clouds, and the meteors succeeded each other in quick succession."

Residents of Alabama sometimes claim that the song refers to the Hodges Meteorite or Sylacauga (meteorite), history's only recorded instance of a human being struck by a meteorite and surviving, but the meteorite strike occurred in 1954, twenty years after Perkins and Parish penned the tune.

Billie's accompanied by Harry Edison (trumpet), Ben Webster (tenor saxophone), Jimmy Rowles (piano), Barney Kessel (guitar), Joe Mondragon (bass), and Larry Bunker (drums). Recorded in Los Angeles, January 8, 1957. (Verve Records)

We lived our little drama
We kissed in a field of white
And stars fell on Alabama last night
I can't forget the glamour
Your eyes held a tender light
And stars fell on Alabama last night

I never planned in my imagination
A situation so heavenly
A fairy land where no one else could enter
And in the center just you and me
My heart beat like a hammer
My arms wound around you tight
And stars fell on Alabama last night

We lived our little drama
We kissed in a field of white
And stars fell on Alabama last night
I can't forget the glamour
Your eyes held a tender light
And stars fell on Alabama last night

I never planned in my imagination
A situation so heavenly
A fairy land where no one else could enter
And in the center just you and me
My heart beat like a hammer
My arms wound around you tight
And stars fell on Alabama last night