LOVE IN BLOOM
(Robin, Rainger)

"Love in Bloom" was introduced by Bing in the movie She Love's Me Not. He recorded the song July 5, 1934, and it rose to No. 1 on the charts, where it stayed for six weeks. It's one of Bing's biggest hits, yet within a few years of its release most people associated the song with comedian Jack Benny instead of Bing.

According to Benny:
"One night Mary and I were in this supper club and the band asked me to join them for their next number. I borrowed a fiddle and, just following the sheet music, I played 'Love in Bloom.' I guess it sounded pretty funny, the violin playing, I mean, not the tune! My spontaneous performance turned up being written about in some column, with the writer wisecracking that 'Jack Benny playing Love in Bloom sounded like a breath of fresh air ... if you liked fresh air...' The following week, Mary and I went to another club. As we entered, the orchestra leader started playing Love in bloom. Obviously, he had seen the item in the paper. The thing just caught on, so I decided to adopt it as my theme song. Let's face it, it's also a pretty easy tune to play on the fiddle. I love it from that aspect, but actually Love in bloom has nothing to do with a comedian. I mean, 'Can it be the breeze that fills the trees with rare and magic perfume ...' sounds more like it should be the theme song of a dog -- not a comic!" (Mary Livingstone Benny, Jack Benny, p71)

"Love in Bloom" was the first Oscar-nominated song that Bing introduced in his movies, but after Benny fiddled it to death perhaps Bing regretted having done so.

Blue nights and you
Alone with me.
My heart has never known such ecstasy.
Am I on earth?
Am I in Heaven?
Can it be the trees
That fill the breeze
With rare and magic perfume?
Oh no, it isn't the trees
It's love in bloom.
Can it be the spring
That seems to bring
The stars right into this room
Oh no, it isn't the spring
Its love in bloom.
My heart was a desert
You planted a seed
And this is the flower
This hour of sweet fullfillment.
Is it all a dream, a joy supreme
That came to us in the gloom?
You know it isn't a dream
It's love in bloom.

My heart was a desert
But you planted a seed
And this is the flower
This hour of sweet fullfillment.
Is it all a dream, a joy supreme
That came to us in the gloom?
You know it isn't a
dream
It's love in bloom.

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