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.

Fly Me To The Moon
Kay Starr Lyrics

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Fly me to the moon
And let me play among the stars
Let me see what spring is like
On Jupiter and Mars
In other words, hold my hand
In other words, darling, kiss me

Fill my heart with song

And let me sing forevermore
You are all I long for
All I worship and adore
In other words, please be true
In other words, I love you

{Fly me to the moon
And let me play among the stars
Let me see what spring is like
On Jupiter and Mars}
In other words, hold my hand
In other words, darling, kiss me

{Fill my heart with song
And let me sing forevermore
You are all I long for
All I worship and adore}

In other words, please be true
In other words, I love you

Overall Meaning

The opening line of Kay Starr's Fly Me To The Moon expresses a strong desire to be taken on a journey to space. The song speaks of the desire for adventure and the eagerness to explore beyond the known world. The lyrics, "Let me play among the stars," capture the beauty and mystery of the universe.

The next two lines indicate a yearning for a new perspective on the natural world. The mention of Jupiter and Mars is a metaphorical representation of the unknown and unexplored. The singer wants to see how spring would be like on these planets, signifying a longing to experience the universe, which is beyond the mundane.

The second verse of the song builds on the themes introduced in the first verse, with the singer now asking the listener to fill her heart with a song that will last for eternity. The words express love, admiration, and adoration, allowing the listener to understand the depth of the singer's feelings. The singer longs for a sense of fulfillment, which is captured in the line, "You are all I long for, all I worship and adore." The final line of the song, "In other words, I love you," is an affirmation of the love and devotion shared between two people.

Fly Me To The MoonKay Starr Lyrics

Fly Me To The Moon
Kay Starr Lyrics