I Hadn't Anyone Till You is a romantic ballad composed by English bandleader and songwriter Ray Noble in 1938. The song's lyric expresses the simple joy of discovering love, delivered through a melody that music historian Alec Wilder, in his landmark study American Popular Song, called "stylish throughout" and considered Noble's finest composition. A key point of harmonic interest is the modulation in the second half of the bridge, which shifts from the home key into a contrasting tonal center, providing a moment of color and lift that Wilder saw as a deliberate counterbalance to the song's otherwise direct and unpretentious character. Noble's original recording with vocalist Tony Martin charted at number four in 1938, though the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra's competing version, which reached number ten, became more closely associated with the song's initial popularity. The tune went on to attract a wide range of interpreters across vocal and instrumental jazz. Ella Fitzgerald recorded it in both 1949 and 1960, Billie Holiday made an intimate version with pianist Jimmy Rowles in 1955, and Frank Sinatra performed a lush Don Costa arrangement in 1961. Noble, who had emigrated from England in 1934 and established himself at New York's Rainbow Room with Glenn Miller's help, wrote several enduring standards including The Very Thought of You and Cherokee, but I Hadn't Anyone Till You stands among his most accomplished and harmonically refined contributions to the Great American Songbook.
