This Can't Be Love

By Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart
1938

A fine example of the sophisticated wit and melodic gift of the Rodgers/Hart team, this song was introduced on stage by Eddie Albert and Marcy Westcott in the musical The Boys from Syracuse. Bandleaders Eddy Duchin and Benny Goodman had hits with it right after. Hart's typically clever lyric pokes fun at the traditional depictions of love in pop ballads.

Lyrics:

This can't be love, because I feel so well.
No sobs, no sorrows, no sighs.
This can't be love, I get no dizzy spells.
My head is not in the skies.

My heart does not stand still,
Just to repeat,
This is too sweet to be love.
This can't be love because I feel so well,
Yet I long to look into your eyes.

Recorded By:

Ella Fitzgerald
Nat King Cole
Diana Krall
George Shearing
Stacey Kent

Falling in Love with Love

By Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart
1938

Rodgers came up with the idea to create the first American musical based on a Shakespearean play, and the result was The Boys from Syracuse, adapted from The Comedy of Errors. This song was one of two standards to emerge from it, the other being "This Can't Be Love". It was introduced in the show by lovely actress of stage and screen, Muriel Angelus (pictured). The successful Broadway production was turned into a movie in 1940.

Lyrics:

I weave with brightly colored strings
To keep my mind off other things;
So, ladies, let your fingers dance,
And keep your hands out of romance.
Lovely witches
Let the stitches
Keep your fingers under control.
Cut the tread but leave
The whole heart whole.
Marry maids can sew and sleep;
Wives can only sew and weep!

Falling in love with love
Is falling for make believe.
Falling in love with love
Is playing the fool;
Caring too much
Is such a juvenile fancy.
Learning to trust
Is just for children in school.

I fell in love with love
One night, when the moon was full.
I was unwise with eyes
Unable to see.
I fell in love with love,
With love everlasting,
But love fell out with me.

Recorded By:

Cannonball Adderly
Julie Andrews
Art Blakey
Vic Damone
Frank Sinatra