"Fly Me to the Moon," first called "In Other Words," is a song written by Bart Howard in 1954. The first recording of the song was made by Kaye Ballard in 1954. Frank Sinatra's 1964 version of the song was linked to the Apollo missions to the Moon. In 1999, the Songwriters Hall of Fame recognized it as a "Towering Song" by adding it to their Hall of Fame.
Background and composition
In 1954, when "Fly Me to the Moon" was first shared with the public, Bart Howard had been working in music for more than 20 years. He played piano for cabaret singers and also wrote songs, hoping to be like Cole Porter, his hero. In the book Intimate Nights: The Golden Age of New York Cabaret, James Gavin wrote that Howard created the song after his publisher asked him to write something simpler. The publisher said, "Why do you use so many words to say something simple?" Howard responded by writing a song called "In Other Words," which talked about poets who use many words to say little. Later, Howard wrote "Fly Me to the Moon" as a cabaret ballad. A publisher tried to change the lyrics from "fly me to the Moon" to "take me to the Moon," but Howard refused. Years later, Howard said, "It took me 20 years to learn how to write a song in 20 minutes."
Howard used his role as a piano accompanist and presenter at the Blue Angel cabaret to share the song. Soon after, Felicia Sanders performed it in cabaret shows.
The song was originally written in 4 time signature, but Quincy Jones changed it to 4 in his arrangement for Frank Sinatra.
Early recordings
Kaye Ballard made the first recording of the song that was sold to the public. This recording, released by Decca in April 1954, was reviewed in Billboard on May 8, 1954. The review described "In Other Words" as "…a love song sung with feeling by Miss Ballard." This recording was released as the other side of the record for "Lazy Afternoon," a song Kaye Ballard was performing as the star of the stage show The Golden Apple.
In the years following, jazz and cabaret singers recorded their own versions of "In Other Words" on EP or LP record albums. These artists included Chris Connor, Johnny Mathis, Portia Nelson, and Nancy Wilson. Eydie Gormé performed the song on her 1958 album Eydie In Love (using the title "In Other Words"). This album reached No. 20 on the Cashbox Album Charts.
Subsequent recordings and uses
In 1960, Peggy Lee released the song on the album Pretty Eyes. She later performed it on The Ed Sullivan Show, which helped the song become more popular. As the song grew in popularity, it became better known as "Fly Me to the Moon." In 1963, Peggy Lee asked Bart Howard to officially change the song's name to "Fly Me to the Moon." That same year, Connie Francis released two versions of the song in other languages: "Portami Con Te" in Italian and "Llévame a la Luna" in Spanish.
In 1962, Joe Harnell arranged and recorded an instrumental version of the song in a bossa nova style. This version was released as a single in late 1962. It was on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for 13 weeks, reaching No. 14 on February 23, 1963. It also reached No. 4 on Billboard's Middle-Road Singles chart and No. 30 in Canada. In 1963, Harnell's version was ranked No. 89 on Billboard's list of "Top Records of 1963." His recording won a Grammy Award at the 5th Annual Grammy Awards for Best Performance by an Orchestra – for Dancing. This version was included on his album Fly Me to the Moon and the Bossa Nova Pops, released in early 1963. The album reached No. 3 on the Billboard Top LPs chart.
In 1964, Frank Sinatra included the song on his album It Might as Well Be Swing, which was performed with Count Basie. The music for this album was arranged by Quincy Jones, who had previously worked with Count Basie on the album This Time by Basie, which also featured a version of "Fly Me to the Moon." Will Friedwald noted that Quincy Jones changed the song's tempo for Basie's version, but when Sinatra performed it with Basie and Jones, the song became a lively swing piece. Bart Howard estimated that by 1964, more than 100 versions of the song had been recorded.
In 1968, Bobby Womack released a version of the song on Minit Records as part of his album Fly Me to the Moon. His version reached No. 52 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 16 on the R&B chart. The song was also used as a doorbell melody on the CBS series WKRP in Cincinnati during scenes set in the apartment of character Jennifer Marlowe.
By 1995, the song had been recorded more than 300 times. In 2016, a poll by the Japanese music magazine CD&DL Data showed that the cover versions by Claire Littley and Yoko Takahashi were highly ranked. Claire Littley's version won the Planning Award of the Heisei Anisong Grand Prize for anime theme songs from 1989 to 1999 after appearing in the end credits of Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Richard Simmons' final words were a loose version of the song's lyrics.
NASA association
Frank Sinatra's 1964 recording of "Fly Me to the Moon" became well-known with NASA's Apollo space program. A copy of the song was played on a Sony TC-50 portable cassette player during the Apollo 10 mission, which orbited the Moon, and also during the Apollo 11 mission before the first landing on the Moon. The song's connection to Apollo 11 was performed again many years later when Diana Krall sang it at the mission's 40th anniversary celebration event and also at the memorial service for mission commander Neil Armstrong in 2012.