A Sunday Kind of Love

By Barbara Belle, Anita Leonard, Stan Rhodes & Louis Prima
1946

A major hit of the latter years of the Big Band era, this song was the collaboration of several different composers, including bandleader, vocalist and all-around pop culture icon Louis Prima (also responsible for such songs as "Sing, Sing, Sing"). It was introduced by the Claude Thornhill orchestra, with vocalist Fran Warren. It has proven to be a very resilient standard, surviving the classic pop era and continuing to be recorded into the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and beyond.

Lyrics:

I want a Sunday kind of love,
A love to last past Saturday night.
And I'd like to know it's more than love at first sight.
I want a Sunday kind of love.

I want a love that's on the square,
Can't seem to find somebody to care.
And I'm on a lonely road that leads to nowhere,
I want a Sunday kind of love.

I do my Sunday dreaming,
And all my Sunday scheming,
Every minute, every hour, every day.
I'm hoping to discover
A certain kind of lover
Who will show me the way.

My arms need someone to enfold,
To keep me warm when Mondays and Tuesday grow cold.
Love for all my life, to have and to hold.
I want a Sunday kind of love.

Recorded By:

Etta James
Jo Stafford
Ella Fitzgerald
Frankie Laine
Dinah Washington

I Ain't Got Nobody

By Spencer Williams & Roger Graham
1915

Although most associated with the 1956 recording in which Louis Prima combined it with "Just a Gigolo", this song was actually written seperately--and 41 years earlier than that one. Composer Williams was a prolific blues writer, also responsible for such standards as "Basin Street Blues" and "I Found a New Baby". He traveled to Europe during the 1920s, when he wrote songs for Josephine Baker. Among the first to record this song was early pop singer Marion Harris, who sang it in 1916 (back when it was known as "I Ain't Got Nobody Much").

Lyrics:

Well there's a sayin' been goin' round,
I began to think it's true:
It's awful hard to love someone,
When they don't care about you.

Once I had a lovin' gal,
The sweetest little thing in town.
But now she's gone and left me,
She done turned me down.

I ain't got nobody,
Nobody cares for me.
I'm so sad and lonely,
Won't somebody take a chance with me?

I'll sing sweet love songs, honey,
All of the time,
If you'll only be my sweet baby, mine.
I ain't got nobody,
Nobody cares for me.

Recorded By:

Bessie Smith
Merle Haggard
Bing Crosby
Fats Waller
Leon Redbone