Melancholy Serenade
Jackie Gleason Lyrics

Instrumental

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Comments from YouTube:

@rogerbeaird5742

3y↑22

I'm 65and as a small child my parents would watch the Jackie Gleason show as we would listen from bed ......always loved this song I still play it to fall asleep ..😎🤣😂😆

@70mmcinerama44

14w↑1

Me too, I believe it was Saturday nights, a little scary. Perry Mason theme used to scare me too.

@Teho231

2y↑24

That brings back memories. That’s real music.

@veekay5734

2y↑30

My God, I love this. It is haunting.

@lauramathis8377

2y↑2

me too

.a special time, great childhood memories...

@TheJonaco

4y↑38

One of the greatest TV themes of all time, and the signature tune of "The Great One". I loved the Gleason show back in the day, when it was broadcast from Miami Beach in the late '60s.
This was one of several distinctive themes that were part of his show. There was only one Jackie Gleason and we'll never see his likes again- or beautiful orchestrated TV themes like this one. Fun fact: I first visited Miami Beach in the early '70s, a year or two after the Gleason
show went off the air. I made it a point to see the old Convention Hall (both GOP and Democratic conventions were there in '72) and its theatre annex. Both were painted in then-fashionable flamingo pink, and there still was a banner over the entrance that read "Home of The Jackie Gleason Show 1962-69". "From the sun-and-fun capital of the world- Miami Beach!"

@freeguy77

4y↑1

No, you got the first year wrong when he was in Miami Beach!
He moved the show from New York to Miami Beach starting in the Fall of 1964, not 1962. 1962 was the first year of his "The American Scene Magazine." The last year in Miami Beach was in the Spring of 1970. I attended one of his shows in Miami Beach in late-1966, when I lived there.

@TheJonaco

4y↑2

@@freeguy77 OK, I had the years wrong. But I had the time period right- I was only 15 in '72. We stayed at the Deauville Hotel, which has its own role in TV history. In early '64, Ed Sullivan broadcast from Miami Beach (he pronounced it "Mi-am-eh"- not Canadian-style!) and introduced The Beatles for their "encore" just a few weeks after their electrifying debut. The Fab Four played in the Deauville's showroom.

@Johnnycdrums

Is there a drums "out front", version?

@andrewthompson6192

1y↑7

Jackie Gleason - The Great One, there's no one else like him !

The awesome talent Jackie Gleason exuded commanded respect and admiration when he walked on and exited the stage, was second to none.

All you have to hear is his theme song Melancholy Serenade as Jackie Gleason entered or existed the stage and it said it all.

In the classic words of The Great One : How Sweet It Is !

@MaryrosePurple1

40w↑5

I grew up with this because my parents watched it. I never realized how talented he was until I was an adult. He also wrote and starred in the movie Gigot and it's one of my favorites now that I'm older. It will make you laugh and cry and then laugh again. He really was The Great One.

@TheCarnivalguy

3y↑17

“And away we go!”

@jameshoran8

1y↑3

A little traveling music, Sam.

@williamanthony9090

2y↑8

Saturday nights in the 1960s... From Miami Beach, it's The Jackie Gleason Show!

@gregorylapointe4157

46w↑3

I heard this played at the end of a Sopranos episode recently and immediately thought, The Jackie Gleason Show, a show our family used to watch when I was a kid.

@upnywhiteb

2y↑9

Just heard this on our new SiriusXM/Amazon Echo Dot. There is a station called "Escape" that plays mostly instrumentals, with many coming from the 50's and 60's. The kind of music I said I would never listen when much younger, now it is all I want. I had to hear it again, so thanks for posting it. Listening to it brings me back to the early 60's when we would visit my Grandmother in Jamaica, Queens on a Sunday and she would be camped out as always on the couch with this show on. She would have her folding table set up for her cigarettes, ashtray, and candies. Hearing it makes me sad because so much has changed and so many are now gone. If possible it is a happy sad, if that makes sense.

@franklinchmara111

2y↑10

A great song by Jackie Gleason, the song was released in October 1953.

@marcbahn5487

51w↑5

I remember hearing this as a kid and thinking 'how can this be a variety show theme instead of a serious tragi-drama?'. I've always loved it and never understood how so many people my age had no recollection of it. Couldn't stand The Honeymooners - Gleason acted like such a loud-mouth buffoon (he wasn't a NYer for nuthin') but I found him somewhat more endearing in other parts he played and in person. Definitely one of the great tunes of my era.

@jasonmeis1020

30w↑3

wow...Im just a young one...but this songs represents power,lust,feeling like a guido of a family but orchestrated perfectly

@David-yw2lv

11w

I watched The Jackie Gleason Show every Saturday night from the first to the eighth season.

@davidsladky3079

12w↑1

How sweet it is ❤

@tomglase5333

35w↑1

i am 68 yrs old. I always loved this song. I just realized its Nuages by Django

@jimhilliker2450

4y↑15

How sweet it is!! There is a video of Gleason telling Johnny Carson about how he started making the mood music albums. Yes, he could not read music or play an instrument. He just heard great music in his head.

@TheJonaco

4y↑3

Whoa Nellie! I completely forgot about Gleason's opener. I once read about the way he produced those LPs. He certainly didn't have the training- he once called a glissando "peeing into a teacup"! :-)
He also had specific musicians in mind. The great trumpeter/cornetist Bobby Hackett played all the solos on Gleason's records, for one. The most famous of his LPs was "Music For Lovers Only",
whose cover featured an ashtray and two (straight!) cigarettes with lipstick on them. That had to be in the early '50s. How times have changed regarding smoking!

@jamesexner127

3y↑9

with Sammy Spear and his orchestra and the June Taylor Dancers

@jameshoran8

1y↑1

The overhead shot of the dancers and Jackie's entrance. How sweet it is. Unforgettable to this 70 year old, still remembering what he saw at nine years old.

@user-bl5jv6zt1m

1y↑5

Lead trumpet by Chris Griffin, one of the three great trumpet players in Benny Goodman's band in the late 30s.

@emmaahh

35w↑2

The best

@luisreyes1963

3y↑7

No wonder they called Jackie Gleason "The Great One". 🎶

@countrypaul

2y↑6

"More schmaltz from the trumpets!!!!" Yeah, okay, but what a great theme and what an archetype of the era. I was not a fan of his show, but he had the mood music thing down cold! (And didn't this play over a screen full of fireworks? I forget if we just saw them or heard them, too.)

@jimhilliker2450

4y↑14

He did the show from New York in the 1950s. He was King of Saturday night TV till Perry Como started his show on NBC in 1955. They often went back and forth in the ratings as to who was # 1 and # 2 on Saturdays. Perry moved to Wednesday nights in 1959 or so, when he was sponsored by Kraft.

@TheJonaco

4y↑5

You got that right. Gleason was still a Saturday night fixture when I watched his show in the late '60s. Some of his other themes were just as great as the opener. One was for his "Poor Soul" skits- don't know the title but it had a vaudeville-style sound. Another, for the "Reggie Van Gleason" skits, was the original instrumental "Shangri-La"
by its composer, harpist Robert Maxwell. Two other of Maxwell's melodies were equally memorable: the pop standard "Ebb Tide" and the "Solfeggio" theme, a/k/a Ernie Kovacs' "Nairobi Trio" theme. Didn't you love Kovacs? I was a toddler when he died, but I once had a DVD set with all- and I mean all- of his TV sketches. That guy was a genius and far ahead of his time.

@richardross1119

46w

It’s always reminded me of “Nuage” by Django Reinhardt….very similar entro notes and similar haunting sound.

@cattycorner8

32w

He led his own orchestra

@happymoogmanjohnson2292

2y↑6

Here is a video showing Gleason actually conducting the orchestra, and Kate Smith singing lyrics to this haunting tune!

https://youtu.be/3rpYzWxam8o

@stuartperry1047

1y↑2

This is really nice. Thank you.

@63bplumb

Without the bell at the beginning it is NOT the shows music!

@caribman10

2y↑1

...but who IS "the Concert Orchestra" - Sammy Spear's gang?

@jimhilliker2450

4y↑13

I heard that Gleason told CBS he was moving to Miami so he could play golf all year. And, that's what he did in 1962.

@freeguy77

4y↑1

No, not 1962! Fall of 1964, until the show was canceled in 1970. He bought a house in Lauderhill, near the Inverrary Country Club (golf course) in Broward County, not in Miami-Dade County where he aired his show.

@jimhilliker2450

@@freeguy77 Thanks. Appreciate the correction. I was born in 1955, so I barely remember except mom and dad loved Gleason. I recall it better after 1966 or so. But I had heard him talk about being tired of winter in New York.

@TheJonaco

4y↑1

@@freeguy77 I remember the golf connection well. Inverrary was, along with Doral, the prestige course in South Florida. I know they had a regular PGA tournament on that course for many years. The PGA National in Palm Beach County was another top-drawer course. Lauderhill is just west of Fort Lauderdale. Nearby Sunrise is home to both the arena where hockey's Florida Panthers play and- much more important to many- the huge Sawgrass Mills shopping center. My aunt frequented it when she lived down there; she's now back home in Boston where she belongs.

@richardburger317

3y↑2

I used watch this show as a kid. I hear this theme from the show l get teary eyed. My family used to watch this show . It was a happy time.

@jameshoran8

@@freeguy77 The Jackie Gleason Inverrary Classic. One of Nicklaus's great comebacks and wins was there in 1972. And you just know who had to present Jack with the trophy. The Real Great One.