What a Little Moonlight Can Do

Billie Holiday is the appropriate artist to represent the moon. Her second hit, in 1935, was “What a Little Moonlight Can Do.” She also had hits with “A Sailboat in the Moonlight,” “It’s Like Reaching for the Moon,” and “I Wished on the Moon.” A nice bio of Lady Day by Donald Clarke is called Wishing on the Moon.

The moon has inspired songwriters of all eras and genres to create some of their best work. My own favorite song list includes more moon songs than those of any other subject. So here are the moon songs I moon over.

Sheet music for “Moonglow / Theme from Picnic”

The full moon at the top of my list is “Moon Glow.” It was written in 1934, and was a top hit that year for Benny Goodman, Cab Calloway, and Duke Ellington. (As Ellington sideman Rex Stewart noted in his memoir Boy Meets Horn, “Moon Glow” owes a big debt to [meaning ripped off] Duke’s 1932 composition “Lazy Rhapsody,” which wasn’t a hit—so I guess Duke got a little payback from the steal.) Billie Holiday recorded it, too. It became a hit again more than twenty years later when Morris Stoloff combined it with the theme from the movie Picnic. My sheet music for the movie tie-in shows an almost shirtless William Holden and a pleading Kim Novak in some sort of romantic entanglement. Somehow, I have never managed to see the movie, but I imagine it’s the theme song I’d still appreciate the most. “We seemed to float right through the air.” Magic! My current favorite version is a vocal-group rendition by The Ravens, which features the sonorous bass vocals of Ricky Ricks.

Back cover, Nilsson Schmilsson

Waning only a wee bit from “Moon Glow” is Harry Nilsson’s “The Moonbeam Song,” from the 1971 masterpiece Nilsson Schmilsson. It is one of Harry’s finest songs, right up there with “Remember,” “Turn on Your Radio,” and “Without Her.” The song sounds like it could’ve come right out of a ‘30s movie—except for a line that places it in the ‘70s: “Or on a fence with bits of crap around its bottom…” You wouldn’t have heard Fred Astaire or Der Bingle singing that one. A little schmilsson to add texture to the charming Nilsson. Harry Nilsson also recorded “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” on his 1973 album of standards A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night.

“It’s Only a Paper Moon” did come from a thirties movie. The songwriters who went on to create “Over the Rainbow,” “If I Only Had a Brain,” and other gems for The Wizard of Oz came up with “It’s Only a Paper Moon” in 1933. The lyrics by Yip Harburg (with Billy Rose) perfectly complement Harold Arlen’s music. It’s all about the depth and meaning a loved one brings to the singer’s life. “Without your love, it’s a melody played in a penny arcade.” This song was in the movie Take a Chance in 1933, and made it into Paper Moon in 1973 and Funny Lady in 1975.

Creedence Clearwater Revival

Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Bad Moon Rising” is ominous, but the cascading guitar chords of John Fogerty’s guitar cut the gloom and make the song quite peppy. I’ve sung it at parties, and the drunks always sing along gaily: “Hope you are quite prepared to die!” The same thing happened at a military salute hosted at the White House by the President: John Fogerty incongruously sang this song for the occasion, and the service-people whooped it up, ecstatic. Dave Marsh rated it #198 in his The Heart of Rock & Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made. Marsh says the song was written about Richard M. Nixon. I sure wasn’t aware of that when I was hearing it back in ‘69 on KLIF, climbing to #2 on the pop charts.

Among my all-time favorite doo-wop songs is “There’s a Moon Out Tonight.” It was a hit that almost wasn’t. When The Capris released it in 1958 on a small label, it made no impact at all. Then record collector Jerry Greene heard it in 1960 and re-released it himself. Demand grew, outpacing Greene’s capacity, and it was issued yet again on Old Town Records. That’s when it became a nationwide hit, in 1961, the one song The Capris are remembered for. It’s got quirky elements, like all the great doo-wop numbers do: the lead vocal inexplicably leaps up an octave after the first two words of each line; the tag features a downward cascade of each part singing a rushed-up “moon out tonight.”

Jay Warner, in his book The Billboard Book of American Singing Groups, turned up several interesting encounters the Capris had with other artists:

• The group’s leader learned of another group called the Capris, who’d had hits in the mid-fifties, when his mother brought home one of the other Capris’ records, which she’d bought thinking it was her son’s group.
• The Capris got their recording contract by going on an audition at which one contender they beat out was Tiny Tim.
• When they were looking for a follow-up to “There’s a Moon Out Tonight,” The Capris were pitched some songs by rookie songwriter Paul Simon. They didn’t bite. (Maybe they should have.)

“Moon River” is a song I only came to appreciate late in life. I’d long associated it with Andy Williams, and whenever I’d hear it I’d get a mental picture of Andy in an Apache scarf and tinted aviator glasses, surrounded by gauzy curtains. It was mom-and-pop music when I was young, and when I finally saw Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Audrey Hepburn’s version still didn’t shake Andy from my brain. It was only recently, when I was given the song to sing in a show, that it grew on me. The Henry Mancini melody is beautiful, and the simple lyrics are Johnny Mercer at his best.

“Havana Moon” is unlike any other song Chuck Berry wrote. It’s got a bit of the Caribbean in it, rather than a rock beat, and doesn’t have the Chuck Berry lead guitar. But it tells a captivating story, and is charming in its rough groove. Santana did a version for his 1983 album, also called Havana Moon. It’s a bit too slick—I prefer Chuck’s unsmoothed-out original—but it heightens the Latin rhythms and features a fine Santana guitar solo.

Honorable Mention: Yes, I was one of the millions of record buyers who helped put Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon near the top of the all-time album sales ranks. It really is a great record, but I probably haven’t listened to it in twenty years.

“Moonlight in Vermont,” from 1945, is one of the very few popular hits to be written in free verse. Songwriter John Blackburn not only didn’t rhyme the lyrics, but he made the verses haiku! Karl Suessdorf provided the beautiful music.

Quota Song: “Moondance,” from Van Morrison’s album of the same name, has lost its glow over the years—probably because I’ve not only heard it so many times but played it so many times. Three other songs from that album, though, are tracks I never tire of: “Caravan,” “Into the Mystic,” and “And It Stoned Me.”

I’d have to say that I’ve also had my fill of Cat Stevens’ “Moon Shadow,” which, at over forty years’ remove, is just a little too twee for me.