I Like to Recognize the Tune is an American popular song written by composer Richard Rodgers

Richard Rodgers

Richard Charles Rodgers was an American composer of music for more than 900 songs and for 43 Broadway musicals. He also composed music for films and television. He is best known for his songwriting partnerships with the lyricists Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II...

 and lyricist Lorenz Hart

Lorenz Hart

Lorenz "Larry" Milton Hart was the lyricist half of the famed Broadway songwriting team Rodgers and Hart...

. The song was introduced by Eddie Bracken

Eddie Bracken

Edward Vincent "Eddie" Bracken was an American actor.-Life and career:Bracken was born in Astoria, New York, the son of Catherine and Joseph L. Bracken. Bracken performed in vaudeville at the age of nine and gained fame with the Broadway musical Too Many Girls in a role he reprised for the 1940...

, Marcy Wescott, Mary Jane Walsh, Richard Kollmar and Hal Le Roy

Hal Le Roy

Hal Le Roy was a dancer, actor and singer appearing on stage, in film and on television.-Career:Le Roy was born John LeRoy Schotte in Cincinnati in 1913. He broke into New York theater as a dancer, and quickly worked his way into Broadway roles where his dance style created a sensation in the 1931...

 in the 1939 Broadway musical Too Many Girls

Too Many Girls (musical)

Too Many Girls is a Broadway musical comedy and a 1940 film version of the show, starring Lucille Ball.-Broadway version:Too Many Girls opened October 18, 1939, with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Lorenz Hart and book by George Marion Jr. It was produced by George Abbott...

. The lyrics lament the distortions of melody inherent in Jazz and Swing: "I like to recognize the tune / I want to savvy what the band is playing / I keep saying, "Must you bury the tune?" In his autobiography, Musical Stages, Richard Rodgers described the motivations that inspired the song: "we voiced objection to the musical distortions, then so much a part of pop music because of the swing-band influence."

The 1940 film version of Too Many Girls, which starred RKO contract star Lucille Ball

Lucille Ball

Lucille Désirée Ball was an American comedian, film, television, stage and radio actress, model, film and television executive, and star of the sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy and Life With Lucy...

 and the Broadway hit's cast member Desi Arnaz

Desi Arnaz

Desi Arnaz was a Cuban-born American musician, actor and television producer. While he gained international renown for leading a Latin music band, the Desi Arnaz Orchestra, he is probably best known for his role as Ricky Ricardo on the American TV series I Love Lucy, starring with Lucille Ball, to...

 (who met and fell in love on the set, and married soon afterwards), did not feature the song. The song would appear in a later musical revue turned into a Lucille Ball film, Meet The People (MGM, 1944), and was sung by the film's supporting player, June Allyson

June Allyson

June Allyson was an American film and television actress, popular in the 1940s and 1950s. She was a major MGM contract star. Allyson won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for her performance in Too Young to Kiss . From 1959–1961, she hosted and occasionally starred in her own CBS anthology...

, who met her own future husband in that film's co-star, Dick Powell

Dick Powell

Richard Ewing "Dick" Powell was an American singer, actor, producer, director and studio boss.Despite the same last name he was not related to William Powell, Eleanor Powell or Jane Powell.-Biography:...

.

"I Like to Recognize the Tune" has been recorded by many jazz and popular artists over the years, including Mel Tormé

Mel Tormé

Melvin Howard Tormé , nicknamed The Velvet Fog, was an American musician, known for his jazz singing. He was also a jazz composer and arranger, a drummer, an actor in radio, film, and television, and the author of five books...

, George Shearing

George Shearing

Sir George Shearing, OBE was an Anglo-American jazz pianist who for many years led a popular jazz group that recorded for MGM Records and Capitol Records. The composer of over 300 titles, he had multiple albums on the Billboard charts during the 1950s, 1960s, 1980s and 1990s...

, Dinah Shore

Dinah Shore

Dinah Shore was an American singer, actress, and television personality...

, Gene Krupa

Gene Krupa

Gene Krupa was an American jazz and big band drummer and composer, known for his highly energetic and flamboyant style.-Biography:...

, Tal Farlow

Tal Farlow

Talmage Holt Farlow was an American jazz guitarist. Nicknamed the "Octopus", Farlow's extremely large hands spread over the fretboard as if they were tentacles. He is considered one of the all-time great jazz guitarists. Michael G...

, Bobby Short

Bobby Short

Robert Waltrip "Bobby" Short was an American cabaret singer and pianist, best known for his interpretations of songs by popular composers of the first half of the 20th century such as Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Noel Coward and George and Ira Gershwin.He...

, Carol Kidd

Carol Kidd

Carol Kidd, MBE is a Scottish jazz singer.She came to prominence in the mid 1970s, as the vocalist in the band led by vibrophonist / saxophonist Jimmy Feighan. In 1990, she released her award-winning album, The Night We Called It a Day. She has subsequently performed and recorded extensively on...

 and Johnny Desmond

Johnny Desmond

Johnny Desmond , born Giovanni Alfredo De Simone, was a popular American singer.-Early years:...

.