Music Tuesday: Violets for Your Furs by Frank Sinatra

When John Sterling, the great radio announcer for the NY Yankees, retired on April 15^th this year at the of 85, I caught a few outgoing interviews, and in one interview that got into his life and loves he was asked his favorite song.  His reply surprised me.  It was Frank Sinatra’s “Violets for Your Furs.”  I have a few of Frank Sinatra’s discs, and I not only did not have that song on any of them, but I had never even heard of the song.  Of all the great Sinatra songs, he loves that one the best?  I have forgotten everything from that interview, except for this tidbit of a factoid.  I searched the song out and heard it and it has really grown on me.

It was recorded by Sinatra in 1941 with the great Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, and it’s a song describing a man giving his love violets for her fur coat.  It is said that Sinatra sang this for Lana Turner, his current love at the time. 

 

Violets for Your Furs

by Matt Dennis with words by Tom Adair

 

It was winter in Manhattan, falling snow flakes filled the air

The streets were covered with a film of ice

But a little simple magic that I heard about somewhere

Changed the weather all around, just within a trice

 

I bought you violets for your furs

And it was spring for a while, remember?

I bought you violets for your furs

And there was April in that December

 

The snow drifted down on the flowers

And it melted where it lay

The snow looked like dew on the blossoms

As on a summer day

 

I bought you violets for your furs

And there was blue in the wintry sky

Then you pinned the violets to your furs

And gave a lift to the crowds passing by

 

You smiled at me so sweetly

Since then one thought occurs

That we fell in love completely

The day that I bought you violets for your furs

 

Here is the lovely rendition.

 

It’s definitely in the early Sinatra crooning style.  It’s a lovely song, and I can see how the song can bring memories of a love.  I love the musical arrangement which I think highlights a piano, a violin, and I think a clarinet.  It may never be my favorite Sinatra song—it must have particular memories for John Sterling—but one I will never forget.