The song of the day for for Sunday, June 28, 2026, is “Bewitched.”
About Today
The Year of Tony Bennett remembers one of Broadway’s greatest composers, Richard Rodgers, who was born on June 28, 1902, in New York City. In his six decades, he wrote more than 900 songs and 40 musicals. He was the first person to attain EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) status; he also won a Pulitzer Prize, which made his the first person to win all five awards.
About This Song
“Bewitched (Bothered and Bewildered)” was written by Richard Rodgers and Larry Hart for the 1940 musical Pal Joey, where it was introduced by Vivienne Segal. Notable recordings are by Benny Goodman, Mel Tormé, Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald, and Frank Sinatra. Alec Wilder admired the lyric and the verse, but found the song “notey.” In spite of being notey, it’s a cornerstone of the American Songbook.
About This Version
Tony Bennett recorded “Bewitched” on October 28, 1959, accompanied only by his pianist and musical director Ralph Sharon. The resulting album, Tony Sings For Two, was released in January 1961. In his autobiography The Good Life, Bennett writes:
I always wanted to be unpredictable, and so for my next project, I decided to go in the opposite direction from the big orchestral albums I’d been doing lately and cut an intimate piano-vocal album with Ralph Sharon. We booked time at the studio and pored through music books, trying one tune after another. The arrangements were spontaneous, and we finished each song in one or two takes. In one afternoon we laid down sixteen tunes—which must be some kind of record—twelve of which made it onto the album, which became 1961’s Tony Sings For Two. Mitch Miller showed up at the start of these sessions, furious that I was really going through with it. When he saw that there was no dissuading me, he turned to Frank Laico and said, “I’m leaving. I can’t support this.” Tony Sings For Two turned out to be one of my finest records ever.
“Bewitched,” as well as Tony Sings For Two, is available on Apple Music.