"Ain't Misbehavin'": song history, Commentary, Discography, Performances on Video

"Ain't Misbehavin'"

About the revue Hot Feet/Connie's Hot Chocolates

Hot Feet/Connie's Hot Chocolates: Hot Feet was an all black revue that opened in Harlem at Connie's Inn in 1929 and was popular enough to move to Broadway's Hudson Theater later that year, where it was renamed Connie's Hot Chocolates. Louis Armstrong made his New York debut playing a distinctive trumpet in the Orchestra. Between acts the young Armstrong rendered "Ain't Misbehavin'" so distinctively that he was given another chorus to perform after Margaret Simms and Paul Bass introduced the number as a love duet during the first act. The show was also a springboard to fame for Cab Calloway who replaced Bass later in the show's run. (originally from WICN radio, web page, no longer available).

Hot Feet opened at Connie's Inn on February 28, 1929. Barry Singer, Razaf's biographer, quotes a review of the show from the Pittsburgh Courier as saying, "This is the first floor show of New York's exclusive night clubs to entirely the work of men of color" (Singer, p. 205)

Many accounts of how"Ain't Misbehavin'" was conceived have been floated. The "true story" according to Maurice Waller, Fats' son, is less exotic than most of the others.

The Two songwriters [Waller and Razaf] had a job to do for Hot Chocolates ' transition to Broadway [from Connie's Inn in Harlem], so they went over to Andy's Harlem apartment to write some music. Dad sat at the piano waiting to "become pregnant with an idea," as he used to put it. Andy sat silently with a pad and pencil, methodically ticking ideas off. He came up with the first two lines and asked Dad his opinion. Pop thought for a moment and then tried to match the music with the lyric. Dad's melodic line triggered the key phrase ("Ain't Misbehavin'") in the lyric and Andy's lyric launched more music. In less than half an hour the two men fed each other ideas so successfully that the song was almost an effortless lark" (Waller and Calabrese. Fats Waller , 1977, p. 86).

As for the more exotic versions of the story, Andy Razaf's biographer, Barry Singer lets us know, Waller was inclined, "in later years" to call 'Ain't Misbehavin' "The Alimony Jail Song." He claimed to have written it while in alimony jail. Needing $250 dollars to get out, he he managed to get a "miniature piano" delivered to his cell and within two days had written the song, which his lawyer sold to a publisher to raise the necessary funds to spring him.

Singer also presents Razaf's recollection of how the song was written: During rehearsals for the Broadway review Connie's Hot Chocolates, Razaf showed up at Waller's apartment on 133rd street in Harlem. Waller was in his pajamas at the piano playing "a marvelous strain, which was complicated in the middle. I straightened it out with the 'no one to talk with, all by myself' phrase . . . which led to the phrase 'ain't misbehavin,' which I knew was the title. The whole thing took about forty-five minutes." The two of them then went to their publisher's office where they sold the song and then to the theater where it was arranged by Harry Brooks for the show (Singer, Black and Blue, 212-14).

Ken Bloom quotes Harry Brooks, who generally receives co-credit for the music, as presenting yet another aspect of how "Ain't Misbehavin" was written. The composition was, according to Brooks, "an attempt to copy the successful formula Gershwin used for 'The Man I Love.' We imitated the opening phrase that began just after the first beat and the minor part of the bridge, too."
Ken Bloom, The American Songbook, The Singers, The Songwriters and the Songs. New York: Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers, 2005, p. 302.

Alec Wilder, whose book American Popular Song is a classic, comments on Harry Brooks claim that he and Waller consciously imitated Gershwin's "The Man I Love" (See just above). Wilder writes, "There is a tale that the composers of this song deliberately set out to fashion a new melody on the harmony of another famous one. It's of no matter, as they found a good rhythm ballad" (Wilder, American Popular Song, p. 467).

Thomas Hischak calls "Ain't Misbehavin'" a "timeless jazz lament of a faithful lover who stays at home listening to the radio and is 'savin' my love for you' even though the lusty music and the sly tone of voice make one question the sincerity of the statement," and he adds, "one of the song's distinctive qualities is its contagious use of changing harmonies." (Hischak, The Tin Pan Alley Song Encyclopedia, p. 6).

William Zinsser elaborates on Wilder's point when he writes, "African-Americans have been credited with writing so few popular standards that anyone might think they were writing a different kind of music. But the music composed by American blacks in the early years of the 20th century is one of the cornerstones of American popular song. Theirs was the jazz and ragtime sensibility that George Gershwin, Harold ARlen and many other white song-writers went to Harlem to draw inspiration from."

Commenting on the collaboration between Razaf and Waller, Zinsser notes that the "endlessly fertile" Waller was someone out of whom "tumbled songs of high exuberance as fast as his hands touched the keys ('Squeeze Me,' 'The Joint is Jumpin'). He could match Razaf's playful side ('Honeysuckle Rose') and also his serious concerns, as in the poignant race song 'Black and Blue' ('What did I do to be so black and blue?')" (Zinsser. Easy to Remember, pp. 71, 74).

Click here to read the lyrics for "Ain't Misbehavin'," as sung by Sarah Vaughan , who sings the refrain only. Razaf and Waller had constructed the song with two verses, one preceding the refrain and the other following it. Very few artists have included either, most just singing the refrain, as Sarah does, and for that matter, as Waller himself does in the movie Stormy Weather . Here are two verses they omit: Verse 1 Though it's a fickle age, With flirting all the rage, Here is one bird with self-control, Happy inside my cage. I know who I love best, Thumbs down on all the rest, My love was given heart and soul, So it can stand the test. Refrain No one to talk with, All by myself, . . . etc. Verse 2 Your type of man is rare, I know you really care, That;s why my conscience never sleeps When you're away somewhere. Sure was a lucky day When fate sent you my way, And made you mine alone for keeps, Ditto to all you say. Repeat Refrain Maxine Sullivan's 1956 recording gives the lyric a more contemporary context by changing the "radio" in the lyric to a TV, the Fifties being the decade during which TV emerged as the dominant entertainment medium. After getting home "about eight" she is alone not with her radio, as she would have been when Waller and Razaf wrote the song in the late Twenties, but with her "video." And she begins the song by eliminating Razaf's verse and substituting her own: Channel 4, Channel 2, What a Bore, Where are You? I'm a lonesome Jill Without a Jack, Cause the TV set Just won't call back. You can listen to the other changes she introduces into the lyric, including an entirely different second verse by playing the music-video of her performance in the Cafe Songbook Record Cabinet .

Fats Waller, known for his philandering ways, "endlessly truant" as William Zinsser called him, was apparently someone who lived to misbehave. Waller provided a contrast to his more conservatively inclined lyricist, Andy Razaf. In such a context, Razaf may have found that his lyric for Fats' melody had its ironies. Razaf's singer is a model of faithfulness, who, when he is alone in his room, has no inclination to misbehave, no thought of anyone beside his true love. As Philip Furia points out, Razaf has "his solitary singer rejoice to be 'home about eight' and alone in his room—'just me and my radio'—since such isolation is a sign that he is happily faithful to his absent lover. As the singer celebrates that lonely fidelity with increasing fervor, the space of the tiny room constricts even further, like Jack Horner, in the corner, don't go nowhere, what do I care?" No room for misbehavin' here! Quotations from Furia, The Poets of Tin Pan Alley p. 87. Philip Furia, The Poets of Tin Pan Alley: A History of America's Great Lyricists , New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. Authoritative lyrics for "Ain't Misbehavin'" can be found in:

Vintage sheet music
"Ain't Misbehavin'"
music by Fats Waller
words by Andy Razaf
from the musical revue
Connie's Hot Chocolates
(1929)

• Topsy Chapman/Rebecca Kilgore: jules2view;
• Floyd Pepper/Muppets: aarnis;
• Randy Crawford: chiidang.

Notes

• More Sources : See Critics Corner (below).
• Other songs written for the revue Hot Chocolates currently included in the Cafe Songbook Catalog of The Great American Songbook :
• 1. Black and Blue
• Barry Singer, Black and Blue The Life and Lyrics of Andy Razaf . New York: Schirmer Books, 1992 .
• Ain't Misbehavin' (1978 Original Broadway Cast album)
• William Zinsser. Easy to Remember The Great American Songwriters and Their Songs . Jaffrey, New Hampshire: David R. Godine, 2001.

Cite this page: "Ain't Misbehavin'": song history, Commentary, Discography, Performances on Video, Cafe Songbook, https://greatamericansongbook.net/pages/songs/a/aint_misbehavin.html