| Composer | Hoagy Carmichael |
| Lyricist | Johnny Mercer |
| Year Written | 1941 |
About This Song
Hoagy Carmichael wrote the melody, based off a Bix Beiderbecke improv, for a musical he wanted to write, using the novel Young Man With a Horn. After the project was abandoned, he asked Johnny Mercer to write the lyrics. Mercer said he struggled with the writing for a year. Then he saw an advertising billboard with the word ‘skylark’ on it and the lyric came quickly.
View the lyrics
Skylark
Have you anything to say to me?
Won’t you tell me where my love can be?
Is there a meadow in the mist
Where someone’s waiting to be kissed?
Skylark
Have you seen a valley green with spring
Where my heart can go a-journeying
Over the shadows and the rain
To a blossom covered lane?
And in your lonely flight
Haven’t you heard the music of the night?
Wonderful music, faint as a will o’ the wisp
Crazy as a loon
Sad as a gypsy serenading the moon
Skylark
I don’t know if you can find these things
But my heart is riding on your wings
So if you see them anywhere
Won’t you lead me there
Skylark
I don’t know if you can find these things
But my heart is riding on your wings
So if you see them anywhere
Won’t you lead me there
Recordings
1959
Tony Bennett and Ralph Sharon recorded “Skylark” on October 28, 1959.
CO 63856
NOTE: “Skylark” was not in the original release of Tony Sings For Two. It was added to the 1995 CD re-release.
Release History
| 1991 | Columbia CD: C4K 46843 — Forty Years – The Artistry Of Tony Bennett |
| 1993 | CBS/Sony CD: SRCS-6641 — Forty Years: The Artistry Of Tony Bennett |
| 1995 | Sony Music CD: SMSP A 8242 — Tony Sings For Two |
| 2004 | Columbia/Legacy CD: C5K 92784 — Fifty Years: The Artistry of Tony Bennett |
| 2011 | Columbia: The Complete Collection — Disc 19 — Tony Sings For Two |
| 2013 | Columbia — Sixty Years: The Artistry of Tony Bennett |