It's Love-Love-Love
"It's Love, Love, Love" is a popular song whose music was written by Joan Whitney and Alex Kramer, with lyrics by Mack David, and published in 1943.[1]
Guy Lombardo recording[]
The best-known recording was by Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians (vocal by Skip Nelson). It was recorded on January 7, 1944, and released by Decca Records as catalog number 18589. It first reached the Billboard magazine Best Seller chart on April 6, 1944 and lasted 10 weeks on the chart, peaking at #1.
Unfortunately, the ubiquitous Guy Lombardo Billboard #1 single recording omits the charming third verse, which is arguably the most amusing in this short, humorous ditty. Sirius XM Forties Junction occasionally plays a recording (such as the RCA Victor Four King Sisters one) that has all three verses performed just as written, but it is rare to hear it, hard to find on YouTube, nor does iTunes offer a recording other than the Guy Lombardo 1944 version. The King Sisters did an admirable job with the song, but they did change up the chorus after the second and third verses, so it is not quite a pure rendition. However, lovers of the song may not object to what the King Sisters did, as it was well done and affected only the refrain, which is long and somewhat repetitive relative to the short verses of the song.
There are a number of other problematic (for lovers of the song as-written) recordings out there, as well, such as the Bing Crosby recording that omits the second verse and mangles the wording on the first by gender-flipping it (which is odd, since it is written for a man, which Crosby was, and this was long before trans-genderism came into vogue). Perhaps it was a live recording, or more likely Crosby was playing it for further laughs, as it is a comic tune to begin with. (Note: Crosby sang the song on seven occasions on radio including one duet with Bob Hope. He never recorded it commercially.)[2]
Other versions[]
- Later in 1944, a recording was released by The King Sisters on Bluebird Records, a subsidiary of RCA Victor, and this too charted with a peak position of #4.[3]
- The Platters included the song on their album Song for the Lonely (1962).[4]
Popular culture[]
- The song was included in the film Stars on Parade (1944).[5]
References[]
- ^ Dick Jacobs & Harriet Jacobs: Who Wrote that Song?, published by Writer's Digest Books, 1993
- ^ "Bing Crosby Songography". Bing magazine. Retrieved December 30, 2018.
- ^ Whitburn, Joel (1973). Top Pop Records 1940-1955. Record Research.
- ^ "allmusic.com". allmusic.com. Retrieved December 30, 2018.
- ^ Whitburn, Joel (1986). Joel Whitburn's Pop Memories 1890-1954. Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin: Record Research Inc. p. 280. ISBN 0-89820-083-0.
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- Number-one singles in the United States
- 1943 songs
- Songs with lyrics by Mack David
- Songs written by Joan Whitney (songwriter)
- Songs written by Alex Kramer
- Bluebird Records singles
- Pop standard stubs