"The Nearness of You": Song History, Commentary, Discography, Performances on Video

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The Nearness of You
Written: Music: 1935 Words: 1937	Music by: Hoagy Carmichael	Words by: Ned Washington	Written for: the never-made movie Romance in the Rough)
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On the Main Stage at Cafe Songbook

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Nicole Henry

performing

"The Nearness of You"

with Mike Orta, piano, live at the Nango Jazz Festival, Japan 2006

Nicole Henry recorded "The Nearness of You" on her 2004 CD,
The Nearness of You.

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"The Nearness of You"

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Origins of the Song

Other songs written for Romance in the Dark currently included in the Cafe Songbook Catalog of The Great American Songbook: none.

For a complete listing of songs used in the movie Romance in the Dark, see IMDB Soundtracks.

Carmichael wrote the melody for an MGM screen adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1935 while he was still in New York. After making the move to Hollywood, in 1937 Paramount assigned him and Washington to write a song for a movie to be called Romance in the Rough. Washington put words to the previously written melody and it became "The Nearness of You." Although Paramount never produced Romance in the Rough, they did make a movie titled Romance in the Dark in 1938 and in it Gladys Swarthout introduced "The Nearness of You." It did not become a hit, however, until 1940 when Glenn Miller recorded it with a Ray Eberle vocal.

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Credits

("The Nearness of You" page)

Credits for Videomakers of custom videos used on this page:

Nicole Henry: nikisings

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The Cafe Songbook
Record/Video Cabinet:
Selected Recordings of

"The Nearness of You"

(All Record/Video Cabinet entries below
include a music-video
of this page's featured song.
The year given is for when the studio
track was originally laid down
or when the live performance was given.)

Performer/Recording Index
(*indicates accompanying music-video)

Performer 1 (year)
Performer 2 (year)

Year
Artist
album: title

Music-Video

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