Blue Moon was composed by Richard Rodgers with lyrics by Lorenz Hart in 1934, and it holds a unique place in their catalog as their only hit not written for a Broadway show or film. The melody went through several incarnations at MGM, first as "Prayer" for Jean Harlow, then as "The Bad in Every Man" for the film Manhattan Melodrama, before Hart wrote the final romantic lyrics for the radio program Hollywood Hotel. Rodgers himself viewed the song somewhat dismissively as a commercial exercise, yet it became their top-selling sheet music title, moving over a million copies. The melody is characterized by a spare, dreamlike quality that evokes longing and solitude, with a harmonically adventurous bridge featuring unexpected chord movements that give the song an exotic flavor within an otherwise accessible framework. Blue Moon has been recorded hundreds of times across genres, from Billy Eckstine's 1949 number-one R&B hit and Mel Torme's smooth vocal treatment to Elvis Presley's 1956 rockabilly arrangement and the Marcels' 1961 doo-wop version that topped the pop charts. In jazz, it has served as a reliable vehicle for both ballad and uptempo interpretations, and it appeared in at least seven MGM films following its initial release. The song is a cornerstone of the Great American Songbook and remains one of the most widely performed standards in the repertoire.
