Album: The Peaceful Side (1948)

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• I used to visit all the very gay places
  Those come what may places
  Where one relaxes on the axis of the wheel of life
  To get the feel of life
  From jazz and cocktails
  
  The girls I knew had sad and sullen gray faces
  With distinguée traces
  That used to be there you could see where they'd been washed away
  By too many through the day
  Twelve o'clock tales
  
  Then you came along with your siren of song
  To tempt me to madness!
  I thought for a while that your poignant smile was tinged with the sadness
  Of a great love for me
  
  Ah yes! I was wrong
  Again
  I was wrong
  
  Life is lonely again
  And only last year everything seemed so sure
  Now life is awful again
  A trough full of hearts could only be a bore
  A week in Paris will ease the bite of it
  All I care is to smile in spite of it
  
  I'll forget you I will
  While yet you are still burning inside my brain
  Romance is mush
  Stifling those who strive
  I'll live a lush life in some small dive
  And there I'll be while I rot
  With the rest of those whose lives are lonely too Writer/s: Billy Strayhorn
  Publisher: Hipgnosis Songs Group, Reservoir Media Management, Inc., Songtrust Ave
  Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 7

• Chrissie from New South Wales AustraliaGrowing up in the Land of Oz, most Australian families were not overly familiar with the great early American songwriters/singers - unless one was brought up in a musical family. I became very immersed with Rickie Lee Jones. Her release of the standards LP "Funny Valentine" features her rendition of Lush Life. Being that this is the ONLY version I know and due to her status as a respected singer/songwriter, I was eagerly seeking her name in the article and comments. RLJ's version recorded LIVE at Perkins Palace LA on 16/4/1982 remains mesmerising.
• Mary K James from Long Beach, CaI have known the tune Lush Life and made it part of my vocal repertoire for many years. It is one of the more musically challenging jazz vocals among the 5 or so that I made sure I learned. I had to know, why is this song such a relentless downer? We don't know. It just is. Are my audiences in 2023 going to like that? Only performing it will tell. Try SPRING CAN REALLY HANG YOU UP THE MOST.
• Stevie L from West Valley, L.a. CountyTotally bogs my mind how such a young person is able to create this lyric. My favorite vocal? The Queen Latifa of course.
• Madnana from UkI just happened upon this piece about Lush Life. It is an interesting and complex song. What your author missed didn't mention was that Sarah Vaughn sang a version of this song in her own inimitable way. And a fantastic job she made of it too!
• Kathleen Bergeron from Salisbury, NcThe Coltrane-Hartman version has always been my favorite. Johnny Hartman is the only singer I’ve ever heard sing it with that last word, “too,” just right. I just wish he’d pronounced “poignant” correctly. Why in the world didn’t someone stop tape to get that right?
• Frederic from VirginiaThe lyrics may be challenging but the difficulty with this song lies in the melodic line and the harmonic structure. Nonetheless, the web site Jazz Standards lists it as #36 in their list of the 1000 most-frequently recorded jazz standard compositions.
• Ben Are you serious, it’s obviously about him being gay...

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