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.
You Always Hurt the One You Love
Kay Starr Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
The one you shouldn't hurt at all
You always take the sweetest rose
And crush it till the petals fall
You always break the kindest heart
With a hasty word you can't recall
So If I broke your heart last night,
It's because I love you most of all
Kay Starr's "You Always Hurt the One You Love" is a hauntingly beautiful song that speaks about the paradoxical nature of love. In the song, the singer laments about the fact that we often hurt the people we love the most, despite our best intentions. The song is a perfect reflection of the complicated, and often painful, experience of falling in love.
The first stanza of the song speaks about how we hurt the one we love, even though we should never hurt them. The metaphor of taking the sweetest rose and crushing it till the petals fall is a powerful one, as it shows the fragility and beauty of love, which can be destroyed with a single misstep. In the second stanza, the song speaks about how we break the kindest heart with a hasty word that we can't recall. This demonstrates how love is full of contradictions, and even though we love someone deeply, we end up hurting them unintentionally.
The chorus of the song, "You always hurt the one you love," is a simple but powerful statement. It reminds us that love is often fraught with pain and that even our best intentions can lead to hurt feelings. The final line of the song, "So if I broke your heart last night, it's because I love you most of all," is a poignant reminder of the depth of love and how it can lead to both joy and heartbreak.
Overall, Kay Starr's "You Always Hurt the One You Love" is a timeless classic that speaks to the universal experience of love and heartbreak. The song's simple but profound lyrics, beautiful melody, and haunting vocals ensure that it remains a favorite among music lovers of all ages.
Line by Line Meaning
You always hurt the one you love
It seems that every time you love someone deeply, you end up hurting them.
The one you shouldn't hurt at all
You end up hurting that person who you should not be hurting at all.
You always take the sweetest rose
You always seem to take the most valuable and fragile things and end up breaking them.
And crush it till the petals fall
You go on crushing or destroying that precious thing, until you completely damage it.
You always break the kindest heart
You often break the kindest and most loving heart out there.
With a hasty word you can't recall
With just some hastily spoken words, which you might not even remember, you can shatter someone's heart.
So If I broke your heart last night,
So, if I broke your heart last night, it was not intentional, it's because I love you the most.
It's because I love you most of all
The reason why I broke your heart last night is that I love you more than anything or anyone else in the world.
Lyrics © MUSIC SALES CORPORATION, Kanjian Music, Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: Allan Roberts, Doris Fisher
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@jujitusuka
Love Kay Starr excellent voice, love her 40’s collaboration with Charlie Barnet.
@alaneverton667
My fav version