Fly Me to the Moon

Fly Me to the Moon”, originally titled “In Other Words”, is a song written in 1954 by Bart Howard. The first recording of the song was made in 1954 by Kaye Ballard. Frank Sinatra’s 1964 version was closely associated with the Apollo missions to the Moon. In 1999, the Songwriters Hall of Fame honored “Fly Me to the Moon” by inducting it as a “Towering Song”. In 1954, when he began to write the song that became “Fly Me to the Moon”, Bart Howard had been pursuing a career in music for over 20 years. He played piano to accompany cabaret singers, but also wrote songs with Cole Porter, his idol, in mind. In response to a publisher’s request for a simpler song, Bart Howard wrote a cabaret ballad[5] which he titled “In Other Words”. A publisher tried to make him change some words from “fly me to the Moon” to “take me to the Moon,” but Howard refused. Many years later Howard commented that “… it took me 20 years to find out how to write a song in 20 minutes.” He used his position as a piano accompanist and presenter at the Blue Angel cabaret venue to promote the song and it was soon introduced in cabaret performances by Felicia Sanders. Kaye Ballard circa late 1950s Kaye Ballard made the song’s first[8] commercial recording, released by Decca in April 1954.