You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me

By Sammy Fain, Irving Kahal and Pierre Norman
1930

Iconic Frenchman Maurice Chevalier was one of the leading film heartthrobs of the Depression era, and this song was one of the reasons why. Introduced by him in the romantic comedy The Big Pond, in which he sung it to the beautiful Claudette Colbert, the song is an ebullient love anthem, with a Kahal lyric that extols the virtues of the beloved in the manner of a Shakespearean sonnet. Chevalier's recording was a major hit, and was famously lampooned the following year by the Marx Brothers in Monkey Business, which features a scene in which the boys try to pass themselves off as the crooner to get through customs.

Lyrics:

If the nightingales could sing like you
They'd sing much sweeter than they do
For you brought a new kind of love to me

And if the sandman brought me dreams of you
I'd want to sleep my whole life through
You brought a new love to me

I know that I'm the slave, you're the queen
Still you can understand that underneath it all
You're a maid and I am only a man

I would work and slave the whole day through
If I could hurry home to you
You brought a new kind of love to me

Recorded By:

Frank Sinatra
Doris Day
Benny Goodman
Peggy Lee 
Vera Lynn

There Ought to Be a Moonlight Savings Time

By Irving Kahal & Harry Richman
1931

Introduced by the consummate Frenchman Maurice Chevalier in 1931, this song is a wonderful example of the light-hearted uptempo love songs of the early 1930s. Guy Lombardo's orchestra would have a huge hit with it the same year, taking it all the way to number one. A tongue-in-cheek confection of the Depression Era designed to take people's minds off the sad state of affairs. I know it would've worked on me...

Lyrics:

Birdies fly with new ambition, spring is in their song
Soon you'll yourself a wishin days were not so long.
If my thought is not defined, listen while I speak my mind...

There ought to be a moonlight saving time
So I could love that boy of mine
Until the birdies wake and chime
Good morning!

There ought to be a law in clover time
To keep that moon out overtime
To keep each lover's lane in rhyme
Till dawning.

You'd better hurry up, hurry up, hurry up
Get busy today.
You'd better croon a tune, croon a tune,
To the man up in the moon
And here is what I say:

There ought a Moonlight savings time
So I could love that boy of mine
Until the birdies wake and chime
Good morning!

Recorded By:

Blossom Dearie
Annette Henshaw
Ruth Etting
Ray Anthony
Hal Kemp

My Ideal

By Richard Whiting, Newell Chase & Leo Robin
1930

A classic example of the kind of sweet love songs that populated early Hollywood musicals, this one was sung by Maurice Chevalier to Frances Dee in the rare Paramount film The Playboy of Paris. Universal bought the picture from Paramount as part of a major deal in 1958, yet never released it on video, and it is currently in the public domain. Whiting, on of the composers, was the father of vocalist Margaret Whiting.

Lyrics:

Long ago, my heart and mind
Got together and designed
The wonderful girl for me--
Oh, what a fantasy!

Thought the ideal of my heart
Can't be ordered a la carte.
I wonder if she will be
Always a fantasy?

Will I ever find the girl in my mind,
The one who is my ideal?
Maybe she's a dream, and yet she might be
Just around the corner waiting for me.

Will I recognize the light in her eyes
That no other eyes reveal?
Or will I pass her by, and never even know
That she was my ideal?

Recorded By:

Chet Baker
Wynton Marsalis
Art Tatum
John Coltrane
Dinah Washington