It’s Only A Paper Moon Sheet Music Nat King Cole

Lyrics It’s Only A Paper Moon Nat king Cole

It’s Only A Paper Moon

It is only a paper moon
Sailing over a cardboard sea
But it wouldn’t be make-believe
If you believe in me

It is only a canvas sky
Hanging over a muslin tree
But it wouldn’t be make-believe 
If you believe in me

Without your love
It’s a honky-tonk parade
Without your love
It’s a melody played 
In a penny arcade

It’s a Barnum and Bailey world
Just as phony as it can be
But it wouldn’t be make-believe
If you believe in me

Without your love
It’s a honky-tonk parade
Without your love
It’s a melody played
In a penny arcade

It’s a Barnum and Bailey world
Just as phony as it can be
But it wouldn’t be make-believe
If you believe in me

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“It’s Only A Paper Moon’” is a popular song written by Harold Arlen and published in 1933, with lyrics by E. Y. Harburg and Billy Rose. It was written originally for an unsuccessful Broadway play called The Great Magoo, set in Coney Island. It was subsequently used in the movie Take a Chance in 1933.

Paul Whiteman recorded a successful hit version sung by Peggy Healey released in 1933 featuring Bunny Berigan on trumpet. But its lasting fame stems from recordings by popular artists during the last years of World War II, when versions by Ella Fitzgerald and the Nat King Cole Trio became popular. It has endured as a vehicle for improvisation by many jazz musicians.

There was a resurgence of interest in the song when the Paul Whiteman Orchestra’s 1933 recording was used in the 1973 Oscar-winning film Paper Moon. The song also featured in and lent its name to the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “It’s Only a Paper Moon”, being performed in that episode by James Darren.

Nat king Cole Sheet Music
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