Song of the Day: The Song Is Ended

The song of the day for Saturday, October 21, 2023, is “The Song Is Ended.”

About Today

We are celebrating the great Dizzy Gillespie, who was born in South Carolina on October 21, 1917. Dizzy and Tony Bennett were neighbors in Englewood, New Jersey in the late 1950s and 1960s. One evening, Dizzy dropped by and rang the doorbell at Bennett’s house. Bennett’s son Danny answered the door and Gillespie announced “Hi, I’m Dizzy.” Danny suggested that he come in for a glass of water.

About This Song

“The Song Is Ended (but the Melody Lingers On” was written by Irving Berlin in 1927. In his book The Tin Pan Alley Song Encyclopedia, Thomas Hischak calls this song “… an Irving Berlin standard whose title has been called the theme of all popular music, a chilling number in which both the lover and the ballad that was ‘their song’ is gone; yet neither can be forgotten because they remain in one’s memory.” This song was recorded in 1927 by Ruth Etting and has remained popular over the years with recordings by Dick Haymes, Dizzy Gillespie, Jeri Southern, Dinah Washington, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat “King” Cole and many more.

The song’s lyric is referenced in Ira Gershwin’s verse to “They Can’t Take That Away from Me”, in the line “the song is ended, but as the songwriter wrote, the melody lingers on.” Berlin himself used the “melody lingers on” idea in the opening line of the verse to his earlier song “All Alone” (1924): “Just like a melody that lingers on / You seem to haunt me night and day.”

About This Version

Tony Bennett recorded “The Song Is Ended” in May 1987 for his album Bennett/Berlin, which features Dizzy Gillespie on trumpet. The song was arranged by Bennett and Ralph Sharon.

“The Song Is Ended,” as well as Bennett/Berlin, is available on Apple Music.