When Your Lover Has Gone

SteynonLine ^ | July 7, 2024 | Mark Steyn

[Twotone]

If you missed today's Serenade Radio edition of Steyn's Song of the Week, we are airing it here at SteynOnline for the very first time:

This week's selection has been sung by everyone from Ella Fitzgerald to Carly Simon via, of course, Frank Sinatra, who played a most consequential role in its creator's fortunes. But it started out in a crackerjack Jimmy Cagney/Joan Blondell picture, and the story of its author - a classically-minded Scandinavian Lutheran who became a jazzy New York Jew - is one of the strangest in popular music.

Click above to listen.

[jacknhoo]

That was quite an interesting story. He was never seen by his family again after converting to Judaism. It doesn’t say whether it was their, his or a mutual disowning.

[Fiji Hill]

My favorite version of the song.

When Our Lover Has Gone--Bert Lown & His Hotel Biltmore Orchestra (1931)

[OneTerm]

Thank you for sharing this with us. I especially liked hearing that Frank dedicated all his royalties from that song to the writer’s widow. Class act!

[rlmorel]

My favorite version of this tune by Ben Webster and Oscar Peterson:

LINK: "When Your Lover Has Gone" (Ben Webster Meets Oscar Peterson)