Published 1938 Composer(s) Richard Rodgers | Writer(s) Lorenz Hart | |
"This Can't Be Love" is a show tune and a popular song from the 1938 Rodgers and Hart musical The Boys from Syracuse. It was also included in the 1962 musical film, Billy Rose's Jumbo, though most of the songs in that film came from the 1935 Rodgers & Hart musical Jumbo. The lyrics poke fun of the common depiction of love in popular songs as a host of malignant symptoms, saying, "This can't be love because I feel so well."
The song was a hit for the orchestras of Eddy Duchin and Benny Goodman in late 1938/early 1939.
Covers
Nat "King" Cole released a version in 1954. In 1956, it was recorded by Ella Fitzgerald on her two-record Verve release Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Rodgers and Hart Songbook. In 1961, Judy Garland performed the song as a medley with "Almost Like Being in Love" in the Judy at Carnegie Hall concert. It was also recorded by Dinah Washington, Frank Sinatra, George Shearing, Tony Bennett, Johnny Mathis, Natalie Cole, Rufus Wainwright, Michel Legrand, and Diana Krall, among others.To this day the song is played by many big bands.