After growing up in New Haven, CT, and playing clarinet and alto locally, Shaw spent part of 1925 with Johnny Cavallaro's dance band and then played off and on with Austin Wylie's band in Cleveland from 1927-1929 before joining Irving Aaronson's Commanders. After moving to New York, Shaw became a close associate of Willie "The Lion" Smith at jam sessions, and by 1931 was a busy studio musician. He retired from music for the first time in 1934 in hopes of writing a book, but when his money started running out, Shaw returned to New York. A major turning point occurred when he performed at an all-star big band concert at the Imperial Theatre in May 1936, surprising the audience by performing with a string quartet and a rhythm section. He used a similar concept in putting together his first orchestra, adding a Dixieland-type front line and a vocalist while retaining the strings. Despite some fine recordings, that particular band disbanded in early 1937 and then Shaw put together a more conventional big band.
The surprise success of his 1938 recording of "Begin the Beguine" made the clarinetist into a superstar and his orchestra (who featured the tenor of Georgie Auld, vocals by Helen Forrest and Tony Pastor, and, by 1939, Buddy Rich's drumming) into one of the most popular in the world. Billie Holiday was with the band for a few months, although only one recording ("Any Old Time") resulted. Shaw found the pressure of the band business difficult to deal with and in November 1939 suddenly left the bandstand and moved to Mexico for two months. When Shaw returned, his first session, utilizing a large string section, resulted in another major hit, "Frenesi"; it seemed that he could not escape success. Shaw's third regular orchestra, who had a string section and such star soloists as trumpeter Billy Butterfield and pianist Johnny Guarnieri, was one of his finest, waxing perhaps the greatest version of "Stardust" along with the memorable "Concerto for Clarinet." The Gramercy Five, a small group formed out of the band (using Guarnieri on harpsichord), also scored with the million-selling "Summit Ridge Drive."
Despite all this, Shaw broke up the orchestra in 1941, only to re-form an even larger one later in the year. The latter group featured Hot Lips Page along with Auld and Guarnieri. After Pearl Harbor, Shaw enlisted and led a Navy band (unfortunately unrecorded) before getting a medical discharge in February 1944. Later in the year, his new orchestra featured Roy Eldridge, Dodo Marmarosa, and Barney Kessel, and found Shaw's own style becoming quite modern, almost boppish. But, with the end of the swing era, Shaw again broke up his band in early 1946 and was semi-retired for several years, playing classical music as much as jazz.
His last attempt at a big band was a short-lived one, a boppish unit who lasted for a few months in 1949 and included Zoot Sims, Al Cohn, and Don Fagerquist; their modern music was a commercial flop. After a few years of limited musical activity, Shaw returned one last time, recording extensively with a version of the Gramercy Five that featured Tal Farlow or Joe Puma on guitar along with Hank Jones. Then, in 1955, Artie Shaw permanently gave up the clarinet to pursue his dreams of being a writer. Although he served as the frontman (with Dick Johnson playing the clarinet solos) for a reorganized Artie Shaw Orchestra in 1983, Shaw never played again. He received plenty of publicity for his eight marriages (including to actresses Lana Turner, Ava Gardner, and Evelyn Keyes) and for his odd autobiography, The Trouble With Cinderella (which barely touches on the music business or his wives), but the outspoken Artie Shaw deserves to be best remembered as one of the truly great clarinetists. His RCA recordings, which were reissued in complete fashion in a perfectly done Bluebird LP series, have only been made available in piecemeal fashion on CD.
Don't Take Your Love from Me
Artie Shaw & His Orchestra Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Tear a petal from the rose and the rose weeps too
Take your heart away from mine and mine will surely break
My life is yours to take, so please keep the spark awake
Would you take the wings from birds so that they can't fly?
Would you take the ocean's roar and leave just a sigh?
All this, your heart won't let you do
Don't take your love from me
All this, your heart won't let you do
This is what I beg of you
Don't take your love from me
Don't take your love from me
The song "Don't Take Your Love From Me" is a heart-wrenching appeal to a lover not to abandon the person singing the song. The opening lines set the scene for the depth of emotion in the rest of the song by using metaphorical images of things being taken away and leaving a feeling of sadness or emptiness behind. The singer pleads that the lover does not take his/her love away because this would cause great heartache, as the singer's life is wholly dedicated to this love.
The lyrics then ask the question whether the lover would take the wings from birds or the sound from the ocean, appealing to the idea that some things cannot be changed without causing harm. The singer begs the lover not to take away the love that has been given so freely, emphasizing the intensity of the singer's feelings for the lover. The song ends on a tender and sincere note, as the singer beseeches the lover once again not to take away their love.
Overall, the song uses vivid imagery and emotional appeal to convey the singer's deep love and desperation to hold onto that love.
Line by Line Meaning
Tear a star from out the sky and the sky feels blue
Just like removing a star from the sky makes the sky lose its shine, taking away your love makes me feel blue.
Tear a petal from the rose and the rose weeps too
Just like a rose sheds a tear when a petal is torn off, my heart cries when you take away your love.
Take your heart away from mine and mine will surely break
If you take your heart away from me, it will break mine as well, for they have been beating together all this while.
My life is yours to take, so please keep the spark awake
I have given you my life and my heart, so please don't let the spark of our love die out. Keep the flame burning.
Would you take the wings from birds so that they can't fly?
Just like taking away the wings of a bird would make it unable to fly, please don't take away my love and make me unable to soar.
Would you take the ocean's roar and leave just a sigh?
Just like taking away the roar of the ocean would leave only a sigh, taking away your love would leave me with emptiness and despair.
All this, your heart won't let you do
I know deep in my heart that you won't let me go through the pain of losing your love.
This is what I beg of you
This is my sincere request, please don't take your love away from me.
Don't take your love from me
My heart knows only your love, so don't take it away from me.
Lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: HENRY NEMO
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@swingman5635
A voice like velvet....❤️
@Telcom100
Good background information on this marvelous recording, Professor.
@uni-verse5807
God. How has the world gone from this to absolute chaos? I'll never know.
@scotnick59
Lena herself didn't care for her own singing during this period. I cannot for the life of figure that one out
@jayyoung4534
Had Horne continued in this musical format, we might have heard more of a commercial Lena Horne, and she'd have been better known by the public. Instead, Horne's recordings weren't that much a commercial attraction. But she was more a visual stylist in her singing career. Anyone?
@scotnick59
Very well-daid
@nelsoncordeiro1007
Carl Stalling used this song in "Hare Splitter", Over the title cards☺️
@uni-verse5807
Singing begins 1:36
@jayyoung4534
Interesting. Life's full of twists and turns. For example, Shaw was once married to Lana Turner, who later in her life married Steve Crane, owner of the Luau in Beverly Hills, where Horne was the target of a racist rant as she dined out that evening with her husband, Lennie Hayton, musical director for MGM.
@xfhghe
In addition, Lennie Hayton wrote many arrangements for including Dancing in the Dark and Stardust. Shaw wrote this arrangement though.