Rodgers and Hart’s “Blue Moon” was originally written as “Prayer” for Jean Harlow in the MGM film, The Hollywood Revue of 1933. According to Richard Rodgers in his autobiography, Musical Stages: An Autobiography, Harlow’s prayer was to become a movie star, and the lyrics started out as “Oh, Lord, if you’re not busy up there, I ask for help with a prayer/ So Please don’t give me the air...” Unfortunately, because of a series of production personnel changes, the revue was scaled down to a spoof starring Laurel and Hardy, the Three Stooges, and Jimmy Durante. There was no Harlow and no “Prayer.”

The Rodgers and Hart song’s next incarnation was as the title track for the 1934 film, Manhattan Melodrama, starring Clark Gable, William Powell, and Myrna Loy. Before the film’s release, however, the title was changed yet again, this time to “The Bad in Every Man,” and it was sung by Shirley Ross.

It was not long after this that music publisher Jack Robbins offered a “deal” to the songwriting team: If Hart would write a more commercial lyric, Robbins would “plug it from one end of the country to the other.” Robbins suggested the song should be one of those Tin Pan Alley love songs with the words June, moon, and spoon. Just to show he could do it, and with a large measure of cynicism, Hart wrote the lyrics to “Blue Moon.” Although he did not personally like the song, it soon became a number one hit, a million-seller in sheet music sales, and, in the end, his most popular song.

In its final form, “Blue Moon” was for Rodgers and Hart their only hit not associated with a Broadway show or a Hollywood film. While its success and popularity are both irrefutable, because of the simplicity of its construction it is not critically ranked among the top Rodgers and Hart compositions.

Like many other songwriters, Rodgers and Hart moved west to Hollywood as Broadway began to feel the effects of the 1929 depression. Their three-year stay proved an unpleasant experience for Rodgers as he disliked the impersonal Hollywood system and felt unproductive between movies. Hart, on the other hand, reveled in the Hollywood life enjoying the money, the free time, and the parties until dawn. The good life, however, was not without its cost. To appease producers Hart found himself writing the same types of watered-down, sentimental lyrics he had scoffed at years before, and he, too, became disgusted with the assignments.

On the pop charts, “Blue Moon” has had repeated success:

• Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra (1935, Kenny Sargent, vocal, #1)
• Benny Goodman and His Orchestra (1935, Helen Ward, vocal, #2)
• Ray Noble’s Orchestra (1935, Al Bowlly, vocal, #5)
• Mel Torme (1949, with Pete Rugolo and His Orchestra, #20)
• Billy Eckstine (1949, with Hugo Winterhalter and His Orchestra, #21)
• The Marcels (1961, #1 selling over 2.5 million copies)

“Blue Moon” became Mel Torme’s signature song and was also the theme music for the 1930’s radio series Hollywood Hotel.

The phrase “blue moon” originated in the 1800’s. It is a cropped version of “till a blue moon” which basically means “never” or, as it also might be expressed, “until hell freezes over.” Over the past two hundred years the phrase has changed meaning several times but has come to mean two full moons in one month, a phenomenon which occurs about every 32 months.