I'll Get By (as long as I have you)

Written: 1928

Music by: Fred Ahlert

Words by: Roy Turk

Written for: Independent Publication
(not for a Broadway show, revue, movie, etc.)

On the Main Stage at Cafe Songbook

Peggy Lee

performing

"I'll Get By"

(August, 1984)
from the video The Quintessential Peggy Lee;

Peggy Lee previously recorded "I'll Get By" on her 1963 album
Mink Jazz.

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Jack Jones

performing

"I'll Get By"

(c. 1995)

Jack Jones recording of "I'll Get By" originally on the LP album
Dear Heart (1965) is now available on the double CD
Wives and Lovers / Dear Heart (1998)

Cafe Songbook Reading Room

"I'll Get By"

Critics Corner || Lyrics Lounge

I'll Get By" had several lives in terms of its recording history. Professional songwriters and often collaborators Fred Ahlert and Roy Turk wrote the song for independent publication and must have been gratified by the number of recordings made almost immediately after its publication in late 1928. These included Aileen Stanley, Gus Arnheim and His Orchestra, Nick Lucas, and Bing Crosby with the Ipana Troubadours. Recordings by all of these artists appeared in December, 1928, and were quickly followed by the song's major hit recording made by Ruth Etting on Feb. 1, 1929, reaching the charts on April, 13, 1929, staying there for ten weeks, and peaking at #3. The popularity of the song intensified when in October of 1929, the market crash made the need to "get by" more sharply felt.

Although Billie Holiday's 1937 recording has achieved its own immortality, it was the capacity of the song, especially of its lyric, to tap into the feelings engendered by the pain of separations wrought by World War II that gave it a second life in the early 1940s. Recordings by The Harry James Orchestra with vocal by Dick Haymes, The Ink Spots and The King Sisters returned "I'll Get By" to popularity in Big Band and R & B modes. Its use in the 1943 A Guy Named Joe where it is sung by Irene Dunne and the 1944 movie Follow the Boys in which Dinah Shore performs it also helped the song's revival during this period.

Jazz breathed new life into "I'll Get By" when artists such as John Coltrane, Coleman Hawkins, Count Basie, Erroll Garner, Jonah Jones, and Charlie Parker recorded instrumental versions while Peggy Lee, Cleo Lane, Keely Smith, Dionne Warwick and other singers recorded jazz inflected versions. By this time, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, "I'll Get By" had become a standard and has remained one ever since.

I'll Get By" is not a song that has received a lot of critical attention, perhaps suggesting its slightness. Nevertheless the distinguished critic (and composer), Alec Wilder liked it. He writes of Ahlert that he was a "better-than-average writer, and though his best songs were not many, he deserves mention among the great craftsmen." As for "I'll Get By" Wilder points out that it was Ahlert's first big hit and that the song "deserved its success." Wilder believed that songs written for the theater were generally superior to popular songs written only for the popular consumption and that " I'll Get By"

doesn't go as far as it might have had it been written for the theater, but it's so good that one wishes it hadn't been confined to the unwritten limitations of pop song writing (Wilder, p. 416, hardcover Ed.)

Click here to read the lyrics for "I'll Get By," as sung by Frank Sinatra. Like so many singers, Sinatra, changes up the lyrics to suit his particular needs. First he omits the versewith which Roy Turk begins his lyric. There are at least two versions of the verse. To hear one, listen to the 1929 Ruth Etting recording in the Record/Video Cabinet. Here is the other:

I've neither wealth nor power,
But now that you said you're mine
"Wherever I go,
Whatever I do,
I'll be doin' fine.
For . . .

I'll get by
As long as I have you . . . .

Then Sinatra alters Turk's refrainby omitting its central section. Finally, Sinatra returns to Turk's refrain singing its ending: "Poverty / May come to me . . . ," etc.
This set of alterations is not that different from what most singers do with this song. For example, along with the Etting version, listen to Billie Holiday. Much of this may be dictated by the need to fit the lyrics into the time available on a single 78 rpm disc while still giving the accompanying orchestra time for its solo portion.

The complete, authoritative lyrics for "I'll Get By " can be found in:

Reading Lyrics, Edited and with an Introduction by Robert Gottlieb and Robert Kimball, New York: Pantheon Books, 2000.

Click here to read Cafe Songbook lyrics policy.

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Credits

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Record/Video Cabinet:
Selected Recordings of

"I'll Get By "

1928
Bing Crosby
album: The Essential Bing Crosby

same track as on album referenced above

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Notes: A studio recording from December 28, 1928 with the Ipana Troubadours. Crosby biographer Gary Giddins writes:
"The Rhythm Boys [Crosby, Harry Barris and Al Rinker] were back in New York to play Christmas week [1928] at the Palace. . . . The day before closing at the Palace, Bing made two records with the Ipana Troubadours, a radio orchestra led by Sam Lanin that included several of Bing's jazz buddies (the Dorseys, Vic Berton, Manny Klein), though you would not know it from the staid arrangements. Bing's hiring indicated his growing stature among top musicians. He got to sing a very good song, "I'll Get By," with a somewhat husky voice and tinge of Jolson, and a very bad one, "Rose of Mandalay," which he nonetheless enhanced with his intrepid zip" (Giddins, p. 184, hardcover ed.).

Gary Giddins
Bing Crosby:
A Pocketful of Dreams--
The Early Years 1903-1940
Boston: Little Brown, 2001
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1929
Ruth Etting
album: Love Me or Leave Me

same track as on album referenced above

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Notes: Although Etting's recording followed Crosby's, it was her version having reached the charts on April, 13, 1929, staying there for ten weeks and peaking at #3, that really put the song on the map.
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1937
Billie Holiday
album: The Quintessential
Billie Holiday

same track as on album referenced above

Notes: recorded May 11, 1937, Buck Clayton (tp) Buster Bailey (cl) Johnny Hodges (as) Lester Young (ts) Teddy Wilson (p) Alan Reuss (g) Artie Bernstein (b) Cozy Cole (d) Billie Holiday (v): : "The band opens and Hodges takes over in an excellent solo. Billie’s marvelous rendition is a classic. Wilson and Buck close with more swing. Billie will record it once more in 1944 (s.MT #163), but this one is superior" (from Billie Holiday Discography, no longer available on-line).

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1941
Dick Haymes / Harry James
album: Best of the Big Bands:
Harry James

same track as on album referenced above

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Notes: The Harry James / Dick Haymes recording of "I'll Get By (as long as I have you)" reached the charts on April 15, 1944, reached #1, and remained on the charts for 28 weeks. It's not hard to understand how during WW II a song with such a lyric, albeit written sixteen years earlier and recorded by James and Haymes three years earlier (April, 1941, before America entered the war), would recapture the feelings of Americans both away at war and back home: "Though I may be far away . . . though there be rain and darkness too, I'll not complain, . . . As long as I have you."
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1943
The Ink Spots
album: The Best of the Ink Spots
The Millenium Collection

same track as on album referenced above

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iTunes

Notes: "MCA's 20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection is a good, basic collection of the Ink Spots' biggest hits — including [along with 'If I Ahd You'] 'If I Didn't Care,' 'My Prayer,' 'Java Jive,' 'Don't Get Around Much Anymore,' 'I'm Making Believe,' 'The Gypsy,' 'I'm Beginning to See the Light,' 'Prisoner of Love,' and 'To Each His Own'" (from iTunes review).
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1958
John Coltrane
album: The Stardust Sessions

same track as on album referenced above

Notes: This CD reissue consolidates a very good session by tenor saxophonist John Coltrane. Originally these eight standards (which include the title cut, "Invitation," "My Ideal," and "I'll Get By (As Long as I Have You)" were scattered on three separate LPs even though they all took place on the same day. With strong support from the rhythm section (pianist Red Garland, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Jimmy Cobb) and good solos from flügelhornist Wilbur Harden, Coltrane is heard near the end of his "sheets of sound" period, perfecting his distinctive sound and taking colorful and aggressive solos" (iTunes review).
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1960
Coleman Hawkins
album: At Ease with
Coleman Hawkins

same track as on album referenced above

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iTunes

Notes: "This is not an essential album, in any usual sense. It is a simple program of eight relaxed numbers, some well-known standards, some bygone obscurities. It is also one of the great, unheralded ballad albums in jazz. With more than 30 years in music under his belt, Hawkins had left an indelible mark on the jazz landscape long before he recorded At Ease in January of 1960. But with nothing to prove, the tenor master swings and sways with supreme grace and sophistication, playing with pure pleasure and seeming effortlessness" (from iTunes review).
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1963
Peggy Lee
album: Mink Jazz

same track as on album referenced above

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iTunes

Notes: album personel: Peggy Lee, vocals; Herb Ellis, Al Hendrickson and John Pisano guitar; Justin Gordon, flute and tenor sax; Harry Klee, flute; Jack Sheldon, trumpet; Lou Levy and Bob Corwin, piano; Max Bennett, bass; Stan Levey and Mel Lewis, drums; Chino Pozo and Francisco Aguabella, percussion.
"Peggy Lee snuck in the recording of "Mink Jazz" by recording tracks over more than a year's time at recording sessions for pop albums. Basically "Mink Jazz" was recorded at the sessions for "Sugar and Spice" and "I'm A Woman." Capitol did release it, though using the same cover photo as for "I'm A Woman," which was released on the same day as "Mink Jazz." As it turned out "Mink Jazz" was a big seller and Peggy Lee's best album. She simply is matchless as she perfectly interprets great standards to superb jazz accompaniments" (from a review by an Amazon customer).
Video: See Main Stage above for live 1984 performance.
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