I Fall in Love Too Easily

Before we start analyzing if the song is an eternal song or not, let me present the song by listening to it at probably the most popular version:

The song lyrics were written at 1944 by Sammy Cahn, known as a musician and songwriter, mainly thanks to his participation in broadway.

The song was composed the same year by Jule Styne, a composer and songwriter also known for his work in Broadway musicals.

The song’s first appreance was taken in 1945 in the musical comedy film ‘Anchors Aweigh’, and performed by Frank Sinatra.

At the songs scene, Frank, as Clarence “Brooklyn” Doolittle, is advised by his friend to give up his love, considering Clearence just met her, and supposed to leave the city soon.

A lot of cover versions were made to this song, mainly at the Jazz Genre. According to Wikipedia, the song was recorded by Eugenie Baird with Mel Tormé and the Mel-Tones, Chet Baker, Ray Conniff, Royce Campbell, Johnny Hartman, Miles Davis, Keith Jarrett, Shirley Horn, Ralph Towner, Tony Bennett, Anita O’Day, Diane Schuur, Fred Hersch and Katharine Mcphee among others. Eliane Elias included the song on her 2000 album Everything I Love. Karen Souza recorded the song on her 2017 album Velvet Vault. Melody Gardot included the song in her 2020 album Sunset in the Blue.

As said before, in this eBook I will mainly concentrate Chet Baker’s version.

here is the beautiful 1945 live version by Eugenie Baird:

Lyrics

Verse:

I fall in love too easily
I fall in love too fast
I fall in love too terribly hard
For love to ever last

Chorus: 

My heart should be well-schooled
‘Cause I’ve been fooled in the past
But still I fall in love so easily
I fall in love too fast

My heart should be well-schooled
‘Cause I’ve been fooled in the past
But still I fall in love too easily
I fall in love too fast

Analyzing the Verse:

1. The song opens with the theme of the song, the person who sings tells his own story, he fall in love too easily, he falls in love too fast. Quick look at the ending line will show the same line again, maybe in order to emphasize this idea.
2. In the 3rd line he says “I fall in love too terribly hard”, we can recognize an emphasizing contrast that presents two aspects of the same idea:
   1. he fall in love too easily – Easy
   2. he fall in love too terribly hard – Hard
3. In the first 3 lines of the song we can understand that the teller of the song is in a problem that he somehow wishes to fix, it even feels like the teller is complaining about his ‘habit’. But a slightly smooth change at the ending of the verse, describes actually a deep wish, for ever lasting love, that his love will never end.

Analyzing the Chorus:

1. The teller explains in the first two lines the irony in his behavior, probably he already had many unrequited loves, but he can’t stop with his habit even when he knows he might get hurt again.
2. The theme lines of the song are written again in order to finish the chorus with the song’s subject.
3. The chorus repeat itself as an ending for the song.

Analyzing the Lyrics:

1. The theme lines of the song are repeated 3 times:
   I fall in love too easily
   I fall in love too fast
2. In total, there are only 6 different lines in the song, which might be in order to give a larger influence to each line. Sometime less lyrics have greater impact.

We can simply understand a lot about the song by comparing two slightly different points of the song:

1. listen to the song- 00:00 – 00:13
   At the first theme lines, Chet Baker’s intonation is presenting a problem, as said before.
2. listen to the song- 02:40 – 02:55
   By the ending theme lines, the intonation has become much more appeased with the problem, he sounds like he has just decided to accept it. It might even seem like that Chet can’t change himself, or maybe just do not want to.
   

Is the song tells a story?

As mentioned in the past few pages, the song is presented as a story, the singer opens his heart from the first line of the song and explains a problem he has.

In a deeply emotional 6 lines of the song we can understand exactly what the story teller goes through. One might say it is maybe a short story, but as said before, the simplyness of the lyrics are giving the story the impact that the songwriter maybe had tried to deliver.

This is Miles Davis instrumental version to the song, maybe we can even understand the story of the song, without the words?

The song’s genre in most of the versions is Jazz, which was popular in the 1950’s.

The ‘dark’ rhythm and the slow tempo of the song let the performer include instrumental and vocal solos along the song. That leads to various instrumental versions of the song.

It can be understandable why one can think the rhythm of the song is not particulary catchy, but the song’s ‘sad mood’ is a major part of the song, that helps pass the story. In fact, maybe being the song’s rhythm ‘not catchy’ helps the listner understand the song.

At this version of the song by Tony Bennett, as in Chet Bakers version, include a trumpet solo.

As other common Jazz songs, this song notes include a lot of minor and minor 7’th chords which helps give the tune it’s gloomy but sweet sound.

The high pitch of the trumpet and piano in most of the versions fits perfectly with the sound of heavy string instruments as contrabass and bass guitar.

Another instrumental version of the song by Ron Carter.

In this version we can hear the piano play together with the contrabass.

In this video we can listen how the past presented aspects are performed in Shirley Horn version:

Another example by Johnny Hartman

Is the song passed the time test?

Today Jazz is not a popular genre, so it is uncommon to hear the song on the radio or TV.

But a good song, is always a good song, and at the right time and place a new version might pop and attract new audience.

We can still hear new versions of the song sometimes, but yet, not versions that really revive the song.

A version by Eliane Elias performed in 2000:

A version by Andrea Motis and Joan Chamorro Quintet & Scott Hamilton performed in 2013:

The latest of the song founded by Melody Gardot performed in 2020:

In my opinion, the song passed the time test, I truly believe that it is a matter of time if the song will be popular again someday, even for a short time.

The song belongs to a past period, it is not a song that can be written or composed today, but i believe that the strength of the song is the combination of simple lyrics, slow tempo and complex chords that creates somehow a melody that is easy to listen to. I believe that the song can touch people today as it did in the past.

I’d like to finish with a beautiful quote by Sammy Cahn about writing the song (taken from wikipedia):

Sammy Cahn has said of the conception of the sixteen-bar song: “This song was written one night in Palm Springs. When I sang the last line, Jule Styne looked over at me and said, ‘So. That’s it.’ I knew he felt we could have written on, but I felt I had said all there was to say, and if I had it to do over, I would stop right there again.”