My Funny Valentine

For the albums, see My Funny Valentine (Miles Davis album), My Funny Valentine (Frederica von Stade album), and My Funny Valentine (Larry Willis album).

"My Funny Valentine"
Song
Published	1937 by Chappell & Co.
Genre	Jazz
Composer(s)	Richard Rodgers
Lyricist(s)	Lorenz Hart

"My Funny Valentine" is a show tune from the 1937 Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart musical Babes in Arms in which it was introduced by former child star Mitzi Green. The song became a popular jazz standard, appearing on over 1300 albums performed by over 600 artists. One of them was Chet Baker, for whom it became his signature song. In 2015, it was announced that the Gerry Mulligan quartet featuring Chet Baker's version of the song was inducted into the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry for the song's "cultural, artistic and/or historical significance to American society and the nation’s audio legacy". Mulligan also recorded the song with his Concert Jazz Band in 1960.

Structure

The song is in minor, with a bridge in the relative major. Frank Sinatra recorded the song in B minor, and the theatrical version was also in B minor. Ella Fitzgerald recorded the song in G minor. C minor is convenient for instrumentalists, and used here. The spelling of chords (especially chords embellished beyond the triad) varies.

Here is the chord progression in the key of C minor:

Cm	Cm(M7)	Cm7	Cm6
Abmaj7/C	Fm7	D⌀7	G7(b9)

The second A section follows a similar progression, but the last two bars are replaced with a minor ii-V in Eb heading into the bridge.

Cm	Cm(M7)	Cm7	Cm6
Abmaj7/C	Fm7	F⌀7	Bb7(b9)

The bridge is in the relative major and speeds up the harmonic progression to 2 chords per measure:

Ebmaj7 Fm7	Gm7 Fm7	Ebmaj7 Fm7	Gm7 Fm7
Ebmaj7 G7	Cm7 Bbm7 A7	Abmaj7	D⌀7 G7

The last A section is extended by 4 bars:

Cm	Cm(M7)	Cm7	Cm6
Abmaj7	D⌀7 G7(b9)	Cm7	Bbm7 A7
Abmaj7	Fm7 Bb7(b9)	Eb6	D⌀7 G7

History

Babes in Arms opened at the Shubert Theatre on Broadway, in New York City on April 14, 1937 and ran for 289 performances. In the original play, a character named Billie Smith (played by Mitzi Green) sings the song to Valentine "Val" LaMar (played by Ray Heatherton). The character's name was changed to match the lyric of this song.

In the song, Billie describes Valentine's characteristics in unflattering and derogatory terms (at one point Billie describes Valentine's looks as "laughable," in keeping with the title), but ultimately affirms that he makes her smile and that she doesn't want him to change. The description of Valentine was consistent with Lorenz Hart's own insecurities and belief that he was too short and ugly to be loved. (The lyrics are sufficiently gender-neutral to allow the song to conversely be sung about either gender, and a large proportion of cover versions of the song have been by men describing a hypothetical woman.)

Standalone recordings

• The song first hit the charts in 1945, performed by Hal McIntyre with vocals by Ruth Gaylor. It only appeared for one week and hit No. 16.

• Bing Crosby recorded the song in 1956 for use on his radio show and it was subsequently included in the box set The Bing Crosby CBS Radio Recordings (1954-56) issued by Mosaic Records (catalog MD7-245) in 2009.

• Miles Davis, Chet Baker, Barbra Streisand, Dinah Shore, Sarah Vaughan, Rickie Lee Jones, Ella Fitzgerald, and Lena Horne covered this song. Elvis Costello recorded a cover version in 1978. It came out in 1979 as the B-side of the single "Oliver's Army" and was later included in multiple compilation albums.

• Jacky Terrasson included the song in his 1994 self-titled album.

• Michael Buble recorded the song for his 2018 album Love.

In popular culture

• In The Simpsons Season 29 episode "Haw-Haw Land", Nelson Muntz sings "My Funny Valentine" to Lisa Simpson. The Frank Sinatra version is later used in the same episode.
• In The Good Cop Season 1 episode "Did the TV Star Do It?", Tony Caruso Sr., played by Tony Danza, starts to sing "My Funny Valentine" on TV, but the murderer/TV host pretends to be offended by what he claims are the misogynistic lyrics. He then fires Tony Sr, allowing him to claim Tony Jr. is out for revenge when he arrests the murderer.
• In the 1995 Season 2 episode of Living Single, entitled "Singing the Blues", Kyle Barker (T.C. Carson) sings "My Funny Valentine" to his on-again/off-again rival and lover Maxine "Max" Shaw (Erika Alexander) in an attempt to regain his confidence after an earlier performance was derailed by her presence. She is left swooning by the end of the number. In 2015 Carson covered the song on a single.
• The song was used in The Vicar of Dibley episode "Engagement".
• In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Part 7 'Steel Ball Run', the main antagonist, Funny Valentine is named after said song

Also played in Grey's Anatomy

See also

• List of 1930s jazz standards

Further reading

• Bragalini, Luca (1997). "My Funny Valentine: The Disintegration of the Standard". Originally published in Musica Jazz.
• Cook, Richard (1999-02-12). "The Hart of the Matter". New Statesman. Vol. 128, no. 4423. p. 45. ISSN 1364-7431.
• Fox, Dan (2007). World's Greatest Wedding Music: 50 of the Most Requested Wedding Pieces. Alfred Music Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7390-4674-6.
• Friedwald, Will (2002). "My Funny Valentine (1937)". Stardust Memories: The Biography of Twelve of America's Most Popular Songs. New York: Random House. pp. 348–373. ISBN 0-375-42089-4.
• Gabbard, Krin (2004). Black Magic: White Hollywood and African American Culture. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0-8135-3384-8.
• Hischak, Thomas S. (2007). The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia. Greenwood Press. p. 189. ISBN 978-0-313-34140-3.
• Holbrook, Morris B. (2005). "The Ambi-Diegesis of "My Funny Valentine"". In Steve Lannin; Matthew Caley (eds.). Pop fiction: The Song in Cinema. Portland, OR: Intellect Books. pp. 48–62. ISBN 1-84150-078-X.
• Studwell, William Emmett (1994). The Popular Song Reader: A Sampler of Well-Known Twentieth Century-Songs. Routledge. p. 127. ISBN 1-56024-369-4.