Louis Armstrong - Stardust (1931) (By Hoagy Carmichael & Mitchell Parish)

Louis Armstrong

Sometimes, I wonder why I spend
Such lonely nights
Oh baby, lonely nights

Dreaming of a song
The melody haunts my reverie
And I am once again with you

When our love was new, oh baby
And each kiss, an inspiration
Now that baby, you know was long ago

Oh, beside a garden wall
When stars are bright
You are in my arms

The nightingale tells his fairy tale
A paradise, where roses bloom
Though I dream in vain

In my heart, it will remain, baby
My stardust melody
Oh memory, oh memory, oh memory

Óscar Alemán - Bésame mucho (By Consuelo Velázquez)

Óscar Alemán

Óscar Alemán y su quinteto

Bésame, bésame mucho
como si fuera esta tarde la última vez
Bésame, bésame mucho
que tengo miedo a perderte, perderte otra vez

The Harlem Hamfats - Weed Smoker's Dream (1936) (By Joseph "Kansas Joe" McCoy)

“Kansas Joe” and “Papa Charlie” McCoy

The Harlem Hamfats

Sitting on a million, sitting on it everyday
Can't make no money giving your stuff away
Why don't you do now like the millionaires do
Put your stuff on the market and make a million too

Face of a betting women, she bets on every hand
She's a tricking modafuckyou everywhere she lands
Why don't you do now, like the millionaires do
Put your stuff on the market and make a million too

May's a good looking frail, she lives down by the jail
On the back though she got hot stuff for cell
Why don't you do now, like the millionaires do
Put your stuff on the market and make a million too

Check Lil Green's "Why Don't You Do Right?"

The Cats and The Fiddle - I'd Rather Drink Muddy Water (1940) (By Bumble Bee Slim)

The Cats and The Fiddle

Babe, we got to have little talk
I ought to pack up my things and walk
I know a dollar goes hand to hand
Before I met you, go from man to man
I'd rather drink muddy water or
Sleep in a hollow log

What's the use, just like a Georgia mule
My friends laughed and they called me a fool
Your kisses are as sweet as can be
Before I'll let you make a sap out of me
I'd rather drink muddy water or
Sleep in a hollow log

Love you baby but you won't be fair
You don't know how to be on the square
Have your fun baby if you must
Before I'll have a woman I can't trust
I'd rather drink muddy water or
Sleep in a hollow log

Lillian Roth - Ain't She Sweet? (1933) (By Milton Ager y Jack Yellen)

Lilllian Roth

Lillian Roth (right)

Short film directed by Dave Fleischer.

Don't miss the lovely sing-along part.

The Hoosier Hot Shots - Alexander's Ragtime Band (1936) (By Irving Berlin)

The Hoosier Hot Shots

Come on and hear, come on and hear,
Alexander's Ragtime Band.
Come on and hear, come on and hear,
It's the best band in the land!
They can play a bugle call like you never heard before.
So natural that you want to go to war.
That's just the bestest band what am, honey lamb.
Come on along, come on along,
Let me take you by the hand.
Up to the man, up to the man,
Who's the leader of the band!
And if you care to hear the Swanee River played in ragtime,
Come on and hear, come on and hear,
Alexander's Ragtime Band!

The Boswell Sisters - Mood indigo (1933) (By Duke Ellington, Irving Mills & Albany Bigard)

The Boswell Sisters

You ain't been blue; no, no, no.
You ain't been blue,
Till you've had that mood indigo.
That feelin' goes stealin' down to my shoes
While I sit and sigh, "Go 'long blues".

Blues on my mind,
Blues all around my head,
Blues on my mind,
Blues all around my head,
I woke up this morning,
Blues all around my bed.

 

Nat Shilkret Orchestra - California Here I Come (1928) (By Al Jolson, Bud DeSylva & Joseph Meyer)

Nat Shilkret (center holding baton) with the Victor Salon Orchestra, c. 1925

Nat Shilkret (1889-1982; extreme left) conducting a radio or studio group of musicians in the 1920s.

California, Here I Come
I'm comin' right back where I started from 

Where bowers of flowers
bloom in the sun. 

Each morning at dawning
birdies sing at everything
a sunkissed miss said, "Don't be late!"
That's why I can hardly wait 

Just open up that golden gate
California, Here I Come

The Ipana Troubadours - Tea For Two (Scrappy Lambert, vocal) (1929) (By Vincent Youmans & Irving Caesar)

The Ipana Troubadours

Picture you upon my knee
Just tea for two
And two for tea
Just me for you
And you for me alone

 Nobody near us to see us or hear us
No friends or relations
On weekend vacations
We won't have it known, dear,
That we own a telephone, dear...

Day will break and you'll wake
And start to bake a sugar cake
For you to take for all the boys to see

We'll raise a family
A boy for you
And a girl for me
Can't you see how happy we would be... 

Ruth Etting - Exactly Like You (1930) (By Dorothy Fields & Jimmy McHugh)

Ruth Etting

I used to have a perfect sweetheart
Not a real one, just a dream
A wonderful vision of us as a team
Can you imagine how I feel now
Love is real now, it's ideal
You're just what I wanted
And now it's nice to live
Paradise to live.....

I know why I've waited
Know why I've been blue
Prayed each night for someone
Exactly like you

Why should we spend money
On a show or two
No one does those love scenes
Exactly like you

You make me feel so grand
I want to hand the world to you
Yo seem to understand
Each foolish little scheme I'm schemin'
And dream I'm dreamin'

Now I know why mother
Taught me to be true
She meant me for someone
Exactly like you

Artie Shaw and His Orchestra with Helen Forrest - All the Things You Are (1939) (By Jerome Kern & Oscar Hammerstein II)

Artie Shaw and His Orchestra with Helen Forrest

Artie Shaw

Helen Forrest

You are the promised kiss of springtime
That makes the lonely winter seem long
You are the breathless hush of evening
That trembles on the brink of a lovely song
You are the angel glow that lights a star
The dearest things I know are what you are
Some day my happy arms will hold you
And some day I'll know that moment divine
When all the things you are, are mine

Cliff Bruner & His Boys - Little White Lies (1939) (By Walter Donaldson)

Cliff Bruner & The Texas Wanderers

The moon was all aglow
And heaven was in your eyes
The night that you told me
Those little white lies

The stars all seemed to know
You didn't mean all those sighs
The night that you told me
Those little white lies

I try, but there's no forgetting
When evenin' appears
I sigh but there's no regretting
In spite of my tears
 

The stars all seemed to know
You didn't mean all those sighs 

 The night that you told me
Those little white lies

Gene Austin - She's Funny That Way (1928) (By Charles N. Daniels & Richard A. Whiting)

Gene Austin

Once she dressed in silks and lace and owned a Rolls Royce car
Now she seems quite out of place like a fallen star
Draped around my kitchen sink as happy as can be

I just have to stop and think why she fell for me.

I'm not much to look at, nothing to see
Just glad I'm livin' and lucky to be
I got a woman crazy for me
She's funny that way.

I can't save a dollar, ain't worth a cent
She doesn't holler she'd live in a tent
I got a woman crazy for me
She's funny that way.

Tho' she loves to work and slave for me ev'ry day
She'd be so much better off if I went away.

But why should I leave her, why should I go
She'd be unhappy without me I know
I got a woman crazy for me
She's funny that way.

I can see no other way and no better plan,
End it all and let her go to some better man;
But I'm only human, coward at best
I'm more than certain she'd follow me west,
I got a woman crazy for me,
She's funny that way.

Fred Astaire - The Way You Look Tonight (1936) (By Jerome Kern & Dorothy Fields)

Fred Astaire

Some day, when I'm awfully low
And the world is cold
I will feel a glow just thinking of you
And the way you look tonight

Oh but you're lovely with your smile so warm
And your cheeks so soft
There is nothing for me but to love you
Just the way you look tonight

With each word your tenderness grows
Tearing my fear apart
And that laugh that wrinkles your nose
Touches my foolish heart

Lovely never, never change
Keep that breathless charm
Won't you please arrange it?
'Cause I love you just the way you look tonight
Just the way you look tonight

Cliff Edwards "Ukulele Ike" - It's Magic (1935)

Cliff Edwards "Ukulele Ike"

Alvino Rey - St. Louis Blues (By William C. Handy)

Alvino Rey

I hate to see that evening sun go down
I hate to see that evening sun go down
Cause my baby, he's gone left this town

Feelin' tomorrow like I feel today
If I'm feelin' tomorrow like I feel today
I'll pack my truck and make my give-a-way

St. Louis woman with her diamond ring
Pulls that man around by her, if it wasn't for her and her
That man I love would have gone nowhere, nowhere

I got the St. Louis blues, blues as I can be
That man's got a heart like a rock cast in the sea
Or else he wouldn't have gone so far from me

I love my baby like a school boy loves his pie
Like a Kentucky colonel loves his mint 'n rye
I love my man till the day I die

Alvino Rey plays "St. Louis Blues" with Stringy the talking steel guitar! (1944)

The Light Crust Doughboys - Just Once Too Often (1937)

The Light Crust Doughboys

Layton & Johnstone - Night and Day (1932) (By Cole Porter)

Turner Layton (l) and Clarence Johnstone (r) in 1933

 Night and day
You are the one
Only you beneath the moon and under the sun
Whether near to me or far it's no matter darling
Where you are
I think of you
Night and day

Day and night,
Why is it so that this longing for you
Follows where ever I go
In the roaring traffic's boom, in the silence of my lonely room
I think of you
Night and day

Day and night
Under the hide of me,
There's an oh such a hungry yearning
Inside of me
And this torment wont be through
Till you let me spend my life making love to you
Day and night, night and day


Like the beat, beat, beat of the tom tom
When the jungle shadows fall
Like the tick, tick, tock of the stately clock
As it stands against the wall
Like the drip, drip drip of the rain drops
When the summer showers through
A voice within me keeps repeating
You, you, you

Ben Selvin & His Orchestra - Blue Skies (1927) (By Irving Berlin)

Ben Selvin

Blue skies
Smiling at me
Nothing but blue skies
Do I see

Bluebirds
Singing a song
Nothing but bluebirds
All day long

Never saw the sun shining so bright
Never saw things going so right
Noticing the days hurrying by
When you're in love, my how they fly

Blue days
All of them gone
Nothing but blue skies
From now on

Whispering Jack Smith - Whispering (By Vincent Rose, John Schoenberger & Richard Coburn)

Whispering Jack Smith

Honey I have something to tell you
And it's worth while listening to
Put your little head on my shoulder
So that I can whisper to you

Whispering while you cuddle near me,
Whispering so no one can hear me
Each little whisper seems to cheer me
I know it's true

There's no one dear, but you,
You're whispering why you'll never leave me
Whispering why you'll never grieve me
Whisper and say that you believe me
Whispering that I love you.

When the twilight shadows are falling
And the weary world is at rest
Then I'll whisper just why I know dear
Loving time is always the best.

Sophie Tucker - The Man I Love (1928) (By George & Ira Gershwin)

Sophie Tucker

When the mellow moon begins to beam
Every night I dream a little dream
And of course Prince Charming is the theme
The he, for me.
Although I realize as well as you
It is seldom that a dream comes true,
To me it's clear
That he'll appear.

Some day he'll come along, the man I love
And he'll be big and strong,  the man I love
And when he comes my way,
I'll do my best to make him stay.

He'll look at me and smile, I'll understand
And in a little while, he'll take my hand
And though it seems absurd
I know we both won't say a word.

Maybe I shall meet him Sunday,
Maybe Monday, maybe not
Still I'm sure to meet him one day
Maybe Tuesday will be my good news day.

He'll build a little home just meant for two
From which I'll never roam, who would? would you?
And so, all else above,
I'm waiting for the man I love.