"Lover" is a popular standard composed by Richard Rodgers with lyrics by Lorenz Hart, written in 1932 for the musical comedy film Love Me Tonight. In the film, Jeanette MacDonald performs the song while riding in a horse-drawn cart, singing the romantic lyric sincerely but with humorous asides to her frisky horse. Originally conceived as a Viennese waltz, the composition features a lyrical melody with chromatic intervals and subtle harmonic shifts that give it emotional depth. Rodgers noted in his autobiography Musical Stages that the song was treated as a joke in the film and never reprised, yet it went on to become one of the most enduring songs from the Rodgers and Hart partnership, which produced roughly a thousand songs over twenty-five years. In jazz, "Lover" has been widely reinterpreted, with musicians frequently transforming the waltz into up-tempo performances in common time. Rodgers himself reportedly raised an eyebrow at Gene Krupa's big band romp but later endorsed varied interpretations as beneficial to a song's longevity. Notable recordings include Paul Whiteman's 1933 version, Gene Krupa's 1945 big band arrangement featuring Charlie Ventura, Les Paul's groundbreaking 1948 multi-track experiment, Peggy Lee's 1952 Latin-flavored hit with eight percussionists, Ella Fitzgerald's rendition on the Rodgers and Hart Song Book, and Max Roach's 1957 version on Jazz in 3/4 Time, which notably retained the original waltz feel.
