What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?

By Frank Loesser
1947

Loesser composed this holiday standard as a stand-alone song, before his highly lucrative career as a Broadway composer began in earnest with Where's Charly in 1948. Margaret Whiting was the first to record, and it has remained one of the most endurant of all holiday standards, still recorded regularly to this day. Turn on the TV tonight, and you're likely to hear it.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, from SOTD!

Lyrics:

 

When the bells all ring and the horns all blow,
And the couples we know are fondly kissing,
Will I be with you, or will I be among the missing?

Maybe it's much too early in the game,
But I thought I'd ask you just the same:
What are you doing New Year's,
New Year's Eve?

Wonder whose arms will hold you good and tight
When it's exactly twelve o'clock that night.
Welcoming in the New Year,
New Year's Eve.

Maybe I'm crazy to suppose
I'd ever be the one you chose
Out of a thousand invitations
You received.

But in case I stand one little chance,
Here comes the jackpot question in advance:
What are you doing New Year's,
New Year's Eve?

Recorded By:

Johnny Mathis

Diana Krall

Harry Connick Jr.

Rufus Wainright

Nancy Wilson