Blue Moon II

No posts about football for ages then three come along at once. Ah the oldies are the best.

According to reports, like this one, yesterday was a ‘Blue Moon’. it doesn’t mean that the moon is actually blue, just that there is an extra one in a season, four this summer rather than three. The football link? ‘Blue Moon’ is the song that Manchester City supporters sing, as I witnessed when watching them at their home ground for the first time earlier this week. Why ‘Blue Moon’ what has it got to do with Manchester City? I do not know, however I will bow down to Manchester City historian, Gary James, who was quoted on the Manchester City FC website this morning as saying,

“The first time I can ever recall it being sung was at the opening game of the 1989-90 season at Liverpool,” he said. “It had never been sung by fans during the seasons before that.

“At Anfield, City fans were kept behind for a while after the match and a few lads started singing it as we started to make our way out. They sang a sort of melancholic version, but it caught on.”

The words were written by Lorenz Hart and the music composed by Richard Rodgers. It has been recorded over 60 times including by; Django Reinhardt, Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Julie London, Sam Cooke, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, The Supremes, Bob Dylan, Rod Stewart. At the ground different versions are played including those by Doves, Supra, The Marcels, Sha Na Na Na, and Beady Eye.

The most important thing, the words;

• Blue moon,
• You saw me standing alone
• Without a dream in my heart
• Without a love of my own.
• Blue moon
• You knew just what I was there for
• You heard me saying a prayer for
• Someone I really could care for
• And then there suddenly appeared before me
• The only one my arms will hold
• I heard somebody whisper please adore me
• And when I looked, the moon had turned to gold.
• Blue moon
• Now I’m no longer alone
• Without a dream in my heart
• Without a love of my own.

Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, 1934 ©