Rodgers and Hart were contracted to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in May 1933. They were soon commissioned to write the songs for Hollywood Party, a film that was to star many of the studio's top artists. Rodgers recalled,
One of our ideas was to include a scene in which Jean Harlow is shown as an innocent young girl saying — or rather singing — her prayers. How the sequence fitted into the movie I haven't the foggiest notion, but the purpose was to express Harlow's overwhelming ambition to become a movie star ('Oh Lord, if you're not busy up there,/I ask for help with a prayer/So please don't give me the air ...').[3][deprecated source]
The song was not recorded (the movie was released without Harlow in 1934[4]) and MGM Song No. 225 "Prayer (Oh Lord, make me a movie star)" dated June 14, 1933, was registered for copyright as an unpublished work on July 10, 1933.[5][better source needed]
Hart wrote new lyrics for the tune, as the title song for the 1934 film Manhattan Melodrama: "Act One:/You gulp your coffee and run;/Into the subway you crowd./Don't breathe, it isn't allowed".[6] The song, also titled "It's Just That Kind of Play", was cut from the film before release, and registered for copyright as an unpublished work on March 30, 1934. The studio then asked for a nightclub number for the film. Rodgers still liked the melody, so Hart wrote a third lyric: "The Bad in Every Man" ("Oh, Lord ... /I could be good to a lover,/But then I always discover/The bad in ev'ry man"[6]), which was sung by Shirley Ross.
After the film was released by MGM, Jack Robbins — the head of the studio's publishing company[7] — decided that the tune was suited to commercial release but needed more romantic lyrics and a punchier title. Hart was initially reluctant to write yet another lyric but he was persuaded.[5] Robbins licensed the final version of the song to Hollywood Hotel, a radio program that used it as the theme. The cover of Robbins' 1934 sheet music edition credits Ted Fio Rito (vocal by Muzzy Marcellino) as introducing the song, recorded on Brunswick 7315, on October 19, 1934.[8]
On September 16, 2018, an article in The New York Times reported that documentary filmmaker Liz Roman Gallese claimed on her website a 1936 lawsuit alleging "Blue Moon" was written by her late father, Edward W. Roman. The family story was "that her father had sold the song for $900 to buy a car, or maybe that he had 'settled' with the rich and famous Rodgers and Hart for that amount." Ted Chapin, the chief creative officer of the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization, said that he had not heard of Gallese's story and that it seemed "a little far-fetched."[12][13]
"Blue Moon"'s first crossover recording to rock and roll came from Elvis Presley in 1954, produced by Sam Phillips. His cover version of the song was included on his 1956 debut album Elvis Presley, issued on RCA Records.[15] Presley's remake of "Blue Moon" was coupled with "Just Because" as a single in August 1956. "Blue Moon" spent seventeen weeks on the Billboard Top 100, although it reached only No. 55.
The Marcels, a doo-wop group, recorded the track for their album Blue Moon. In 1961, the Marcels had three songs left to record and needed one more. Producer Stu Phillips did not like any of the other songs except one that had the same chord changes as "Heart and Soul" and "Blue Moon". He asked them if they knew either, and one knew "Blue Moon" and taught it to the others, though with the bridge or release (middle section – "I heard somebody whisper ...") wrong.[19] The introduction to the song ("bomp-baba-bomp" and "dip-da-dip-da-dip") was an excerpt of an original song that the group had in its act.
American swing era singer Billy Eckstine did a cover version of "Blue Moon" that reached the Billboard charts in 1949. It was released by MGM Records as catalog number 10311. It first reached the Juke Box chart on March 5, 1949, and lasted three weeks on the chart, peaking at number 21.[31][32]
American jazz singerMel Tormé did a cover version of "Blue Moon" that reached the Billboard charts in 1949. It was released by Capitol Records as catalog number 15428. It first reached the Best Seller chart on April 8, 1949, and lasted five weeks on the chart, peaking at number 20. The record was a two-sided hit, as the flip side, "Again", also charted.[31][33]
American country music group the Mavericks covered the song for the soundtrack of the 1995 film Apollo 13. Their version peaked at number 57 on the RPM Country Tracks chart in Canada.[34] It also charted on the RPM Adult Contemporary Tracks chart, peaking at number 15.[35] A music video was produced, directed by Todd Hallowell.
^Brunswick 7300 Series Numerical Listing. (This exact date may be incorrect, as both October 19 and November 19 are cited for the same session. Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra is also cited as making the first recording for Decca on November 16, 1934. [1])
^Brooks, Elston. I've Heard Those Songs Before: The Weekly Top Ten Tunes for the Last Fifty Years. Morrow Quill Paperbacks, p. 52. ISBN0-688-00379-6
^Bronson, Fred (2003). The Billboard Book of Number One Hits: The Inside Story Behind Every Number One Single on Billboard's Hot 100 from 1955 to the Present (5 ed.). Billboard Books. p. 87. ISBN0-8230-7677-6.
^ abWhitburn, Joel (2004). Top R&B/Hip-Hop Singles: 1942–2004. Record Research. p. 376.