Noble wrote both lyrics and music for many popular songs during the British dance band era known as the "Golden Age of British music", notably for his longtime friend and associate Al Bowlly, including Love Is The Sweetest Thing, Cherokee, The Touch of Your Lips, I Hadn't Anyone Till You and his signature tune, The Very Thought of You. Noble also played a radio comedian opposite American ventriloquist Edgar Bergen's stage act of Mortimer Snerd and Charlie McCarthy, and American comedy duo Burns and Allen, later transferring these roles from radio to TV and popular films.
Raymond Stanley Noble was born at 1 Montpelier Terrace in the Montpelier area of Brighton, England. A blue plaque on the house commemorates him. Noble studied at the Royal Academy of Music and in 1927 won a competition for the best British dance band orchestrator that was advertised in the Melody Maker music magazine. In 1929, he became leader of the New Mayfair Dance Orchestra, an HMV Records studio band that featured members of many of the top hotel orchestras of the day.
The most popular vocalist with Noble's studio band was Al Bowlly, who joined in 1930. During this time Noble co-wrote Turkish Delight, By the Fireside and Goodnight, Sweetheart. The latter song was a number one hit for Guy Lombardo in the United States charts.
Noble moved to New York City in 1934. The Bowlly/Noble recordings with the British New Mayfair Dance Orchestra on HMV had achieved popularity in the United States and Noble had several number one hits on the US pop singles charts:
Love is the Sweetest Thing, 1933, no.1 for 5 weeks;
Old Spinning Wheel, 1934, no.1 for 3 weeks;
The Very Thought of You, 1934, no.1 for 5 weeks;
Isle of Capri, 1935, no.1 for 7 weeks;
and with the American band:
Paris in the Spring, 1935, no.1 for 1 week.
As well as Al Bowlly, Noble also took his drummer Bill Harty to USA and asked Glenn Miller to recruit American musicians to complete the band. Glenn Miller played the trombone in the Ray Noble orchestra which performed Glenn Miller's composition Dese Dem Dose as part of the medley Dese Dem Dose/An Hour Ago This Minute/Solitude during a performance at the Rainbow Room in 1935. The American Ray Noble band had a successful run at the Rainbow Room in New York City with Bowlly as principal vocalist. The act included ventriloquist Edgar Bergen.
Although Noble was no singer, he did appear twice as an upper crust Englishmen on two of his more popular New York records, 1935's Top Hat and 1937's Slumming on Park Avenue. Ray Noble was also an arranger who scored many record hits in the 1930s: Mad About the Boy (1932), Paris in the Spring (1935) and Easy to Love (1936),
Ray Noble and his orchestra appeared in the 1937 film A Damsel in Distress with Burns and Allen. Noble played a somewhat "dense" character who was in love with Gracie Allen. His catchphrase was "Gracie, this is the first time we've ever been alone together." Al Bowlly returned to England in 1938 but Noble continued to lead bands in America, moving into an acting career portraying a stereotypical upper-class English idiot.
Ray Noble played the piano but seldom did so with his orchestra. In a movie short from the 1940s featuring Ray Noble and Buddy Clark (one of his most popular band singers), Ray Noble is asked by the announcer to play one of his most popular hits. He sits down at the piano and plays Goodnight, Sweetheart.
Ray Noble provided music for many radio shows like The Chase and Sanborn Hour, The Charlie McCarthy Show and Burns and Allen and also guest appeared in some of their films. He worked with Bergen for nearly fifteen years, playing the foil to McCarthy and the slow-witted Mortimer Snerd, and his orchestra appeared with Edgar Bergen in the 1942 film Here We Go Again. He also did the orchestration for the 1942 Lou Gehrig biopic The Pride of the Yankees starring Gary Cooper. Noble's last major successes as a bandleader came with Buddy Clark in the late 1940s.
The ventriloquist TV show ended in the mid-1950s, and Noble retired to Santa Barbara, California. In the late 1960s Noble relocated to Jersey in the Channel Islands. In March 1978 he flew to London for treatment of cancer, and later died of the disease at a London hospital.
In 1987 Noble was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame.
In 1996 Noble was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
In 2005 The Very Thought of You, recorded by Ray Noble and His Orchestra on Victor in 1934, received the Grammy Hall of Fame Award
In 1938 the Noble composition You're So Desirable was recorded by Billie Holiday and Teddy Wilson
The Noble and Bowlly 1934 recording of Midnight, the Stars and You was prominently featured on the soundtrack of Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film The Shining
In 1990 the Noble composition You're So Desirable was recorded by Robert Palmer
In the 1990 film, The Russia House, protagonist 'Barley' Blair, played by Sean Connery, is portrayed as having once played in the "great Ray Noble's Band"
The Noble and Bowlly classic 1931 song Guilty was included on the 2001 film soundtrack of Amélie
The Blues
Ray Noble Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Without a dream in my heart
Without a love of my own
Blue moon, you knew just what I was there for
You heard me saying a prayer for
Someone I really could care for
And then there suddenly appeared before me
The only one my arms will ever hold
And when I looked, the moon had turned to gold!
Blue moon!
Now I'm no longer alone
Without a dream in my heart
Without a love of my own
The opening line in Ray Noble's song The Blues (also known as Blue Moon) is about feeling isolated and without prospects, as if standing alone in a vast and empty space. The reference to a "blue moon" is particularly poignant, as this rare occurrence is believed to represent a symbolic time of transformation or change. The singer is in a vulnerable state, expressing a lack of hope, dreams, and love, which is captured by the lyric: "Without a dream in my heart, without a love of my own."
However, the song changes tone towards the end, offering a glimmer of hope for the singer. The blue moon, which was once a symbol of loneliness and isolation, transforms into a golden one, as a result of the appearance of someone who could "adore" the singer. This unexpected turn of events represents a transformative moment, as it provides the singer with the possibility of love and companionship. Thus, the final verse highlights that the singer is no longer alone, and that they have found a dream and love to call their own.
Overall, the song's lyrics are both melancholy and hopeful, highlighting the ups and downs of love and the transformative power it can hold.
Line by Line Meaning
Blue moon you saw me standing alone
The singer was standing by themselves and felt lonely.
Without a dream in my heart
The singer didn't have any aspirations or goals.
Without a love of my own
The singer didn't have anyone to love or care for.
Blue moon, you knew just what I was there for
The moon understood the artist's purpose for being alone.
You heard me saying a prayer for someone I really could care for
The moon listened as the artist prayed for someone to love and cherish.
And then there suddenly appeared before me
Out of nowhere, someone showed up in front of the singer.
The only one my arms will ever hold
The person who appeared is the only one the singer will love and hold close.
I heard somebody whisper "Please adore me"
The person who appeared asked to be loved and adored by the artist.
And when I looked, the moon had turned to gold!
The artist felt so happy and blessed that even the moon seemed to shine brighter.
Blue moon!
The artist acknowledges that the moon played a significant role in the events that took place.
Now I'm no longer alone
The singer is no longer lonely now that they found someone to love and cherish.
Without a dream in my heart
The artist now has aspirations and goals for the future.
Without a love of my own
The singer found the love they were looking for.
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: Lorenz Hart, Richard Rodgers
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@AndjelkaDjukic
Gosh, these harmonies and modulations are outstanding..
@janealexander1378
Is that the Boswell Sisters?, sounds like them.
@doncomediagt4518
Es la pieza de jazz más rara 9_9
@steveschwartz1415
GHOSTLY... Sounds like Duke Ellington's band...
@Vinyl_Dave
Not the Boswells, it's the Three Ginx.
@deejay830
1934, not 1939