Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone

By Sam H. Stept, Sidney Clare & Bee Palmer
1930

Popular 1910s and '20s singer Palmer is credited as a co-composer, and it was she who introduced the song. Kate Smith was the one who initially popularized it, but it's most well-known rendition may be the one by Michigan J. Frog in Chuck Jones' classic "One Froggy Evening" cartoon. I'd also like to point that I cleverly used it as my answering machine music at one time.

Lyrics:

Please don't talk about me when I'm gone,
Oh honey, though our friendship ceases from now on.
And if you can't say anything real nice,
It's better not to talk at all, is my advice.

We're parting, you'll go your way, I'll go mine,
It's best that we do.
Give a little kiss and hope that it brings
Lots of love to you.

Makes no difference how I carry on,
Please don't talk about me when I'm gone.

Recorded By:

Frank Sinatra
Ella Fitzgerald
Leon Redbone
The Mills Brothers
Jerry Lee Lewis