Kay Starr (Katherine Laverne Starks, July 21, 1922 – November 3, 2016) was … Read Full Bio ↴Kay Starr (Katherine Laverne Starks, July 21, 1922 – November 3, 2016) was an American pop and jazz singer who enjoyed considerable success in the 1940s and 1950s.

Kay Starr was successful in every field of music she tried, jazz, country and pop. But her roots were in jazz, Billie Holiday, considered by many the greatest jazz singer of all time, called Starr "the only white woman who could sing the blues."
She is best remembered for introducing two songs that became #1 hits in the 1950s, "Wheel of Fortune" and "The Rock And Roll Waltz".

Kay Starr was born on a reservation in Dougherty, Oklahoma. Her father, Harry, was a full-blooded Iroquois Indian; her mother, Annie, was of mixed Irish and American Indian heritage. When her father got a job installing water sprinkler systems, the family moved to Dallas, Texas.

While her father worked for the Automatic Sprinkler Company, her mother raised chickens, and Kay used to sing to the chickens in the coop. As a result of the fact that her aunt, Nora, was impressed by her singing, she began to sing at the age of seven on a Dallas radio station, WRR, first in a talent competition where she finished third one week and won every week thereafter, then with her own weekly fifteen minute show. She sang pop and "hillbilly" songs with a piano accompaniment. By the age of ten, she was making $3 a night, a lot of money in the Depression days.

As a result of her father's changing jobs, her family moved to Memphis, Tennessee, and she continued performing on the radio, singing "Western swing music," still mostly a mix of country and pop. It was while she was on the Memphis radio station WMPS that, as a result of misspellings in her fan mail, she and her parents decided to give her the name "Kay Starr". At the age of fifteen, she was chosen to sing with the Joe Venuti orchestra. Venuti had a contract to play in the Peabody Hotel in Memphis which called for his band to feature a girl singer, which he did not have; Venuti's road manager heard her on the radio, and suggested her to Venuti. Because she was still in junior high school, her parents insisted that Venuti take her home no later than midnight.

Although she had brief stints in 1939 with Bob Crosby and Glenn Miller (who hired her in July of that year when his regular singer, Marion Hutton, was sick), she spent most of her next few years with Venuti, until he dissolved his band in 1942. It was, however, with Miller that she cut her first record: "Baby Me"/"Love with a Capital You." It was not a great success, in part because the band played in a key more appropriate for Marion Hutton, which was less suited for Kay's vocal range.

All of Me
Kay Starr Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

All of me
Why not take all of me
Can't you see
I'm no good without you

Take my lips
I want to lose them
Take my arms

I'll never use them

Your goodbye
Left me with eyes that cry
How can I
Go on dear without you

You took the part
That once was my heart
So why not take all of me

All of me
Why not take all of me
Can't you see
That I'm no good without you

Why don't you take my lips
I want to lose them
My honey take my arms
I'll never use them

Your goodbye
Left me with eyes that cry
Tell me how can I
Go on dear without you

You took the part
That once was my heart

So why not
Why not take all of me

Overall Meaning

In the song "All of Me" by Kay Starr, the singer expresses her longing for her lost lover. The song opens with the lines "All of me, why not take all of me? Can't you see I'm no good without you?" which highlights the singer’s immense emotional attachment to her lover. She is pleading with her lover to take all of her, which signifies that she is ready and willing to give her heart and soul to him. She only wants her lover to complete her life and make her feel whole again. The repetition of the phrase emphasizes the singer's desperation and desire for her lover.

In the second verse, the singer continues to express her willingness to sacrifice everything for her lover. She says, "Take my lips, I want to lose them. Take my arms, I'll never use them." This verse shows just how deeply the singer needs her lover in her life. She is willing to let go of everything that reminds her of him since everything she has now reminds her of the pain his absence has caused her. The singer's voice is filled with emotion and vulnerability, revealing the depth of her love and how much it hurts to be without her lover. The song ends with a final plea to her love to take all of her since he already has taken her heart.

Line by Line Meaning

All of me
I offer myself entirely to you without any reservations.

Why not take all of me
Why don't you accept all of me, rather than just parts of me?

Can't you see
Don't you realize?

I'm no good without you
My life is incomplete and miserable without you.

Take my lips
I offer you my love, represented by my lips.

I want to lose them
I am willing to sacrifice anything for your love.

Take my arms
I offer my strength and protection to you.

I'll never use them
Without you, my arms are useless and meaningless.

Your goodbye
Your departure from my life.

Left me with eyes that cry
I am filled with sadness and tears from your absence.

How can I
There is no way that I can.