"My Heart Tells Me": Song History, Commentary, Discography, Performances on Video

"My Heart Tells Me"

To Read the versefor "My Heart Tells Me," which Sinatra does not include, go to the Cafe Songbook Lyrics Lounge.

When Harry Warren and Mack Gordon were assigned by Twentieth Century Fox to write the songs for Sweet Rosie O'Grady, they had to produce new songs to fit a past time and place, New York during the 1880s. Born Rosie O'Grady in Brooklyn, the character played by Betty Grable has achieved great success in London under the name of Madeleine Marlowe, both on the stage and in romance -- with a duke no less. She returns to New York, but her pose as a lady of refinement is exposed by Sam Magee (Robert Young), a regular guy reporter for the Police Gazette. This does not endear Magee to her and the plot is a device to show how their mutual animosity turns into love.

As is the case with songs in so many movie musicals, "My Heart Tells Me" is introduced in Sweet Rosie O'Grady when one character shows the song to another as a means to getting it performed in a show. In this case, the composer of the song, Clark, (Phil Regan) comes to the home of Madeleine Marlowe, aka Rosie O'Grady (Betty Grable) to play and sing it for her in the hope that she will use it in her act. As the Hollywood fates would have it, Madeleine is in the bath when Clark arrives, so the sheet music is taken into her by a maid. Clark proceeds to play it on the piano and sing it to her from an adjoining room. Madeleine/Rosie likes it and asks him to play it again in her key. She proceeds to sing it from her bubble-filled tub, confirming the song's desirability -- and creating what some have called the film's most memorable scene.

Later in the film, when Madeleine returns to Flugelman's Beer Garden where she is remembered as Rosie O'Grady from her earlier less highfalutin days, she grants everybody's wish that she sing a number by reprising "My Heart Tells Me." At this point she is beginning to fall for Sam MaGee despite her distrust of him; but she is also unsure of her heart, which tells her "this is just a fling." A contrary set of feelings are unmistakable when she returns to her table after singing the song on Flugelman's stage and sings it directly to him. Her heart may have told her that she "will cry again," but the look in her eye portends otherwise. Considerably more squabbling will ensue between the two of them, but by the end of the film it no longer matters what cautionary advice her heart has given her -- or whether her last name is Marlowe or O'Grady, because, as Sam tells her, her name will soon be Magee.

Harry Warren recalled that "Betty Grable was an easy performer to work with. 'I don't remember her ever objecting to a song or causing any problems.'" He noted, however, that over time their friendship cooled when she became a little remote. He rather generously forgave her behavior by explaining, "From what I could see of it, there wasn't anything easy about being a star" (Tony Thomas, Harry Warren and the Hollywood Musical, pp. 195-198).

The singer asks questions of herself based on what her heart tells her, which is contrary to what he (and to a significant Degree she) desire. The questions begin in the seldom heard verse; "How am I to know if I am right or wrong?"; and continue in the refrain: "If I'm fool enough to see this ["fling"] through, would I be sorry if I do?" She can see the sense in her heart's advice to abandon this romance that will produce nothing but "sorrow and tears" because she knows that "lips that kiss like yours could lie again." Unlike her heart who is sure that nothing good will come from this romance, she has no easy answer to her inquiries. The song concludes with the question, "Should I believe my heart or you?"

It is curious that the heart in this song is the stand-in for cautionary common sense rather than playing its more typical role as the seat of desire, which apparently resides elsewhere in her.

Click here to read the lyrics for "My Heart Tells Me" as sung by Frank Sinatra (who did not include the verse, which, as heard on the Tony Bennett recording from the album Cloud 7, goes as follows:

Sometimes I feel very certain that you care. There are times I feel we don't belong. The more I feel for you the more I must beware, So how am I to know, If I am right or wrong. For My Heart Tells me . . . Note that the "For" that begins the refrain is not sung by artists who omit the verse. They simply begin with "My heart tells me . . . " because without the verse preceding the refrain , the "For" makes no sense. Of the recordings listed on this page beside Bennett, only Betty Grable on the soundtrack from Sweet Rosie O'Grady includes the verse. The lyric for "My Heart Tells Me" in the form in which it was sung in the movie and published is available in the sheet music. Click here for a selection of copies of the sheet music available at Amazon

• Joe Williams and George Shearing: dvdspd21
• Glen Gray: musicvideospartseven
• Charlie Parker: JckDupp
• Tony Bennett: vintagevinylsounds
• Dave Mckenna: McKennaFan

Notes

• Click here to read the lyrics for "My Heart Tells Me" as sung by Frank Sinatra.
• Other songs written for Sweet Rosie O'Grady currently included in the Cafe Songbook Catalog of The Great American Songbook :
• For a complete listing of songs used in this movie, see IMDB sountrack .
• Tony Thomas, Harry Warren and the Hollywood Musical , Secaucus NJ: Citadel Press, 1975.
• Thomas Hischak describes "My Heart Tells Me" as "an inquiring ballad" (p. 254) .

Cite this page: "My Heart Tells Me": Song History, Commentary, Discography, Performances on Video, Cafe Songbook, https://greatamericansongbook.net/pages/songs/m/my_heart_tells_me.html