Ella Fitzgerald ft Nelson Riddle Orchestra - Skylark (Verve Records 1964) - Video
PUBLISHED:  Nov 19, 2015
DESCRIPTION:
"Skylark" is an American popular song with lyrics by Johnny Mercer and music by Hoagy Carmichael, published in 1941. Mercer said that he struggled for a year after he got the music from Carmichael before he could get the lyrics right. Mercer recalled Carmichael initially called him several times about the lyric, but had forgotten about it by the time Mercer finally wrote the lyrics. The yearning expressed in the lyrics is Mercer's longing for Judy Garland, with whom Mercer had an affair. This song is considered a jazz standard. Additionally, the song is believed to have inspired a long-running Buick car of the same name that was produced from 1953 to 1998.

Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Johnny Mercer Song Book is a 1964 studio album by the American jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra, focusing on the songs of Johnny Mercer. It was recorded in Los Angeles, California. This is Fitzgerald's fifth and final collaboration with Riddle during her years on the Verve label.

The album is notable as Fitzgerald's only songbook to concentrate on the work of a lyricist. Riddle's lush arrangements interact most beautifully with Fitzgerald on ballads like "Midnight Sun" and "Skylark". Fitzgerald's impeccable swing is most evident on "Something's Gotta Give" and "Too Marvelous for Words".

Skylark
Have you anything to say to me?
Won't you tell me where my love can be?
Is there a meadow in the mist
Where someone's waiting to be kissed?

Skylark
Have you seen a valley green with spring?
Where my heart can go a journeying
Over the shadows and the rain
To a blossom covered lane

And in your lonely flight
Haven't you heard the music in the night?
Wonderful music, faint as a will o' the wisp
Crazy as a loon, sad as a gypsy serenading the moon

Oh skylark
I don't know if you can find these things
But my heart is riding on your wings
So if you see them anywhere
Won't you lead me there?

Oh skylark
I don't know if you can find these things
But my heart is riding on your wings
So if you see them anywhere
Won't you lead me there?
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