"This Can't Be Love" is a show tune

Show tune

A show tune is a popular song originally written as part of the score of a "show" , especially if the piece in question has become a "standard", more or less detached in most people's minds from the original context...

 and a popular song

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...

 from the 1938

1938 in music

-Events:*January 16**Benny Goodman plays the first jazz concert at Carnegie Hall.**Béla Bartók's Sonata for two pianos and percussion is premiered in Basel....

 Rodgers and Hart

Rodgers and Hart

Rodgers and Hart were an American songwriting partnership of composer Richard Rodgers and the lyricist Lorenz Hart...

 musical The Boys from Syracuse

The Boys from Syracuse

The Boys from Syracuse is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Lorenz Hart, based on William Shakespeare's play, The Comedy of Errors, as adapted by librettist George Abbott. The score includes swing and other contemporary rhythms of the 1930s. The show was the first musical...

. It was also included in the 1962

1962 in music

-Events:*January 1 – The Beatles and Brian Poole and the Tremeloes both audition at Decca Records, a company which has the option of signing one group only...

 musical film

Musical film

The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...

, Billy Rose's Jumbo

Billy Rose's Jumbo (film)

Billy Rose's Jumbo is an American musical film produced by MGM in Panavision and Metrocolor, and starring Jimmy Durante, Doris Day, Martha Raye, and Stephen Boyd. The film was directed by Charles Walters and featured Busby Berkeley's choreography...

, though most of the songs in that film came from the 1935 Rodgers & Hart musical Jumbo

Jumbo (musical)

Jumbo is a musical produced by Billy Rose, with music and lyrics by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart and book by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur.-Production:...

. The lyrics poke fun of the common depiction of love in popular songs as a host of malignant symptoms, saying, "This can't be love because I feel too well."

The song was a hit for the orchestras of Eddy Duchin

Eddy Duchin

Eddy Duchin was an American popular pianist and bandleader of the 1930s and 1940s, famous for his engaging onstage personality, his elegant piano style, and his fight against leukemia.-Early career:...

 and Benny Goodman

Benny Goodman

Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...

 in late 1938/early 1939.

Nat "King" Cole released a version in 1954. In 1956, it was recorded by Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...

 on her two-record Verve

Verve Records

Verve Records is an American jazz record label now owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded by Norman Granz in 1956, absorbing the catalogues of his earlier labels, Clef Records and Norgran Records , and material which had been licensed to Mercury previously.-Jazz and folk origins:The Verve...

 release Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Rodgers and Hart Songbook. In 1961, Judy Garland

Judy Garland

Judy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...

 performed the song as a medley with "Almost Like Being in Love

Almost Like Being in Love

"Almost Like Being in Love" is a popular song published in 1947. The music was written by Frederick Loewe, and the lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner....

" in the Judy at Carnegie Hall

Judy at Carnegie Hall

Judy at Carnegie Hall is a two-record live recording of a concert by Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall in New York.This concert appearance, on the night of April 23, 1961, has been called "the greatest night in show business history". Garland's live performances were big successes at the time and her...

concert. It was also recorded by Dinah Washington

Dinah Washington

Dinah Washington, born Ruth Lee Jones , was an American blues, R&B and jazz singer. She has been cited as "the most popular black female recording artist of the '50s", and called "The Queen of the Blues"...

, 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...

, 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...

, Tony Bennett

Tony Bennett

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

, Johnny Mathis

Johnny Mathis

John Royce "Johnny" Mathis is an American singer of popular music. Starting his career with singles of standards, he became highly popular as an album artist, with several dozen of his albums achieving gold or platinum status, and 73 making the Billboard charts...

, Natalie Cole

Natalie Cole

Natalie Maria Cole , is an American singer, songwriter and performer. The daughter of jazz legend Nat King Cole, Cole rode to musical success in the mid-1970s as an R&B artist with the hits "This Will Be ", "Inseparable" and "Our Love"...

, Rufus Wainwright

Rufus Wainwright

Rufus McGarrigle Wainwright is an American-Canadian singer-songwriter. He has recorded six albums of original music, EPs, and tracks on compilations and film soundtracks.-Early years:...

, Michel Legrand

Michel Legrand

Michel Jean Legrand is a French musical composer, arranger, conductor, and pianist...

, and Diana Krall

Diana Krall

Diana Jean Krall, OC, OBC is a Canadian jazz pianist and singer, known for her contralto vocals. She has sold more than 6 million albums in the US and over 15 million worldwide; altogether, she has sold more albums than any other female jazz artist during the 1990s and 2000s...

, among others.To this day the song is played by many BIG Bands.