"My Foolish Heart" is a popular

Popular music

Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...

 song

Song

In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...

 that was published in 1949

1949 in music

-Events:*February 4 – Ljuba Welitsch makes her Metropolitan Opera début in Salome.*September 5 - Wagnerian tenor Walter Widdop appears at The Proms, singing "Lohengrin's Farewell", the day before his sudden death at the age of 51....

.

The music was written by Victor Young

Victor Young

Victor Young was an American composer, arranger, violinist and conductor. He was born in Chicago.-Biography:...

 and the lyrics by Ned Washington

Ned Washington

Ned Washington was an American lyricist.-Biography:Washington was nominated for eleven Academy Awards from 1940 to 1962...

. The song was introduced by the singer Martha Mears

Martha Mears

Martha Mears Martha Mears was the female singing voice in the renditions of "White Christmas" in the movie Holiday Inn , and for two of Lucille Ball's songs in the MGM musical version of DuBarry Was a Lady...

 in the 1949 film of the same name

My Foolish Heart (film)

My Foolish Heart is a 1949 American film which tells the story of a woman's reflections on the bad turns her life has taken. It was directed by Mark Robson and stars Dana Andrews and Susan Hayward. Adapted from J. D...

. The song failed to escape critics' general laceration of the film. Time

Time (magazine)

Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

wrote in its review that "nothing offsets the blight of such tear-splashed excesses as the bloop-bleep-bloop of a sentimental ballad on the sound track." Nevertheless, the song was nominated for an Oscar, losing out to "Baby, It's Cold Outside

Baby, It's Cold Outside (song)

"Baby, It's Cold Outside" is a pop standard with words and music by Frank Loesser.-Background:Loesser wrote the duet in 1936 and premiered the song with his wife, Lynn Garland, at their Navarro Hotel housewarming party...

" by Frank Loesser

Frank Loesser

Frank Henry Loesser was an American songwriter who wrote the lyrics and scores to the Broadway hits Guys and Dolls and How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, among others. He won separate Tony Awards for the music and lyrics in both shows, as well as sharing the Pulitzer Prize for...

.

The song was also a popular success, with two recordings of the song listed among the top 30 on the Billboard charts in 1950

1950 in music

-Events:*January 3 – Sam Phillips launches Sun Records at 706 Union Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee.*August – Herbert Howells' Hymnus Paradisi is premiered at the Three Choirs Festival.*Malcolm Sargent becomes chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra....

. Gordon Jenkins

Gordon Jenkins

Gordon Hill Jenkins was an American arranger, composer and pianist who was an influential figure in popular music in the 1940s and 1950s, renowned for his lush string arrangements...

's recording of "My Foolish Heart", Sandy Evans, vocal, reached the top ten on the charts. However, Billy Eckstine

Billy Eckstine

William Clarence Eckstine was an American singer of ballads and a bandleader of the swing era. Eckstine's smooth baritone and distinctive vibrato broke down barriers throughout the 1940s, first as leader of the original bop big-band, then as the first romantic black male in popular...

's version became a million seller, spending 19 weeks on the charts and peaking at number six.

Allan Jones w. orchestra cond. by Frank Cordell recorded it in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 on July 14, 1950. It was released by EMI

EMI

The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...

 on the His Master's Voice label as catalog numbers B 9948 and IP 607.

Later recordings were made of this standard by numerous artists, including the Arbors

The Arbors

The Arbors were an American pop group formed in 1964 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The members, two sets of brothers, met at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, and began playing local shows in Michigan before moving to New York...

, Tony Bennett

Tony Bennett

Tony Bennett is an American singer of popular music, standards, show tunes, and jazz....

, Dion & The Belmonts, Bill Evans

Bill Evans

William John Evans, known as Bill Evans was an American jazz pianist. His use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, and trademark rhythmically independent, "singing" melodic lines influenced a generation of pianists including: Chick Corea, Herbie...

, Astrud Gilberto

Astrud Gilberto

Astrud Gilberto is a Brazilian samba and bossa nova singer. She is well known for the Grammy Award-winning song "The Girl from Ipanema".-Biography:...

, Jan and Dean

Jan and Dean

Jan and Dean were a rock and roll duo, popular from the late 1950s through the mid 1960s, consisting of William Jan Berry and Dean Ormsby Torrence...

, Tom Jones

Tom Jones (singer)

Sir Thomas John Woodward, OBE , known by his stage name Tom Jones, is a Welsh singer.Since the mid 1960s, Jones has sung many styles of popular music – pop, rock, R&B, show tunes, country, dance, techno, soul and gospel – and sold over 100 million records...

, Ben E. King

Ben E. King

Benjamin Earl King , better known as Ben E. King, is an American soul singer. He is perhaps best known as the singer and co-composer of "Stand by Me", a U.S...

, Al Martino

Al Martino

Al Martino was an American singer and actor. He had his greatest success as a singer between the early 1950s and mid 1970s, being described as "one of the great Italian American pop crooners", and also became well known as an actor, particularly for his role as singer Johnny Fontane in The...

, Carmen McRae

Carmen McRae

Carmen Mercedes McRae was an American jazz singer, composer, pianist, and actress. Considered one of the most influential jazz vocalists of the 20th century, it was her behind-the-beat phrasing and her ironic interpretations of song lyrics that made her memorable...

, Frank Sinatra

Frank Sinatra

Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...

, the Teddy Bears, Mel Tormé

Mel Tormé

Melvin Howard Tormé , nicknamed The Velvet Fog, was an American musician, known for his jazz singing. He was also a jazz composer and arranger, a drummer, an actor in radio, film, and television, and the author of five books...

, the Dimensions (charting at #95), the Roommates, Oscar Peterson

Oscar Peterson

Oscar Emmanuel Peterson was a Canadian jazz pianist and composer. He was called the "Maharaja of the keyboard" by Duke Ellington, "O.P." by his friends. He released over 200 recordings, won seven Grammy Awards, and received other numerous awards and honours over the course of his career...

 with Nelson Riddle

Nelson Riddle

Nelson Smock Riddle, Jr. was an American arranger, composer, bandleader and orchestrator whose career stretched from the late 1940s to the mid 1980s...

, and Joe Williams

Joe Williams (jazz singer)

Joe Williams was a well-known jazz vocalist, a baritone singing a mixture of blues, ballads, popular songs, and jazz standards.-Early life:...

 with George Shearing

George Shearing

Sir George Shearing, OBE was an Anglo-American jazz pianist who for many years led a popular jazz group that recorded for MGM Records and Capitol Records. The composer of over 300 titles, he had multiple albums on the Billboard charts during the 1950s, 1960s, 1980s and 1990s...

. More recently, "My Foolish Heart" has been covered by Elkie Brooks

Elkie Brooks

Elkie Brooks is an English singer, formerly a vocalist with Vinegar Joe, and later a solo artist. Elkie has been nominated twice for Brit Awards' top female singer. She is known for her powerful husky voice...

, Roberta Flack

Roberta Flack

Roberta Flack is an American singer, songwriter, and musician who is notable for jazz, soul, R&B, and folk music...

, Susannah McCorkle

Susannah McCorkle

Susannah McCorkle was an American jazz singer much admired for her direct, unadorned singing style and quiet intensity.-Biography:...

, pianists Liz Story

Liz Story

Liz Story is an American pianist. She was born in San Diego, California. She attended the Juilliard School, studied under Sanford Gold and received additional education in Germany. In the 1980s she emerged as a prominent figure in new age music and recording artist at Windham Hill Records...

 and Keith Jarrett

Keith Jarrett

Keith Jarrett is an American pianist and composer who performs both jazz and classical music.Jarrett started his career with Art Blakey, moving on to play with Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis. Since the early 1970s he has enjoyed a great deal of success in jazz, jazz fusion, and classical music; as...

, guitarists John McLaughlin

John McLaughlin (musician)

John McLaughlin , also known as Mahavishnu John McLaughlin, is an English guitarist, bandleader and composer...

 and John Abercrombie

John Abercrombie (guitarist)

John Abercrombie is an American jazz guitarist, whose work often explores jazz fusion and post bop. Abercrombie has played with Billy Cobham, Jack DeJohnette, Michael Brecker and Randy Brecker...

, Charlie Haden's

Charlie Haden

Charles Edward Haden is an American jazz musician. He is a double bassist, probably best known for his long association with saxophonist Ornette Coleman...

 Quartet West, singers Kurt Elling

Kurt Elling

Kurt Elling is an American jazz vocalist, composer, lyricist and vocalese performer. Born in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in Rockford, Elling first became interested in music through his father, who was Kapellmeister at a Lutheran church...

, Al Jarreau

Al Jarreau

Alwin "Al" Lopez Jarreau is a seven-time Grammy Award winning jazz singer.- Background :Jarreau was born in Milwaukee, the fifth of six children. His web site refers to Reservoir, Inc., the name of the street where he lived. His father was a Seventh-Day Adventist Church minister and singer, and...

, Cris Barber

Cris Barber

Cris Barber is an American jazz singer on the 37 Records label. Cris won the Orange County Music Award for Best Jazz in 2004, and received nominations in 2005, 2006 and 2008...

, Jane Monheit

Jane Monheit

Jane Monheit is a jazz and adult contemporary vocalist for Concord Records. She has collaborated with artists such as Michael Bublé, Ivan Lins, Terence Blanchard and Tom Harrell, and has received Grammy nominations for two of her recordings.-Early life:Jane Monheit was raised in Oakdale, New York...

, Jacqui Dankworth

Jacqui Dankworth

Jacqui Dankworth is a British jazz singer. She is the daughter of the jazz musician, arranger and composer Sir John Dankworth and the singer Dame Cleo Laine.-Career:...

 and Ann Hampton Callaway

Ann Hampton Callaway

Ann Hampton Callaway is a multiplatinum-selling singer, composer, lyricist, pianist, and actress. She is best known for writing and singing the theme to the TV series The Nanny, writing songs for Barbra Streisand and starring in the Broadway musical Swing!.-Career:Callaway was described by the New...

, a capella quartet The Idea of North

The Idea of North

The Idea of North are an Australian a cappella vocal ensemble, founded in Canberra in 1993. The group's name is taken from radio broadcasts of pianist Glenn Gould....

, and the Ska band "The Positive Downside."

In 2004, the song was featured in "The Murder at the Vicarage," an episode of the television series Marple.

In 2008, contemporary jazz guitarist Thom Rotella covered the song from his album "Out of the Blues."

• Rod Stewart
  Rod Stewart
  Roderick David "Rod" Stewart, CBE is a British singer-songwriter and musician, born and raised in North London, England and currently residing in Epping. He is of Scottish and English ancestry....
  
  - Fly Me To The Moon ... The Great American Songbook - Volume V (2010)

The original recording was in G major with stringed instruments. Frank Sinatra sang the song in A flat major and Bill Evans performed it in B flat major.

External links

• "My Foolish Heart" - Lead sheet at wikifonia.org