You Don't Know What Love Is
Music: Gene de Paul / Lyrics: Don Raye
You don't know what love is
Until you've learned the meaning of the blues
Until you've loved a love you've had to lose
You don't know what love is.
You don't know how lips hurt
Until you've kissed and had to pay the cost
Until you've flipped your heart and you have lost
You don't know what love is.
Do you know how lost a heart feels
At the thought of reminiscing?
And how lips that taste of tears
Lose their taste for kissing.
You don't know how hearts burn
For love that cannot live yet never dies
Until you've faced each dawn with sleepless eyes
You don't know what love is.
Recorded at Mistura Productions - 2018
Its hard to believe but “You Don't Know What Love Is" was written for the Abbott and Costello picture Keep 'Em Flying in 1941. The number was deleted from the film prior to release! After Miles Davis recorded the song in the 1950s, it became a jazz standard. Gene De Paul also composed the 1953 hit song "Teach Me Tonight".
Although there have been quite a few wonderful recordings of this amazing melancholy torch song, IMHO, Chet Baker’s tender interpretation is the best.
My arrangement features the Rhodes electric piano, acoustic bass, a smattering of strings and the trombone. On 7-15: I remixed to boost the Rhodes (added stereo tremolo as well...)
Recordings:
Other Versions: