My Favorite Variations of “All the Things You Are”
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know that I am a huge fan of standards from the Great American Songbook. I like many musical genres – some more than others – but as a guy who sang bass/baritone in South Miami High School’s choral groups (men’s chorus in 10th grade; mixed chorus in 11th and 12th grade), when it comes to songs with lyrics, standards rule.
In March of 2023, around the same time I started writing Reunion: Coda, I bought a digital album titled “Mantovani and His Orchestra: Great Concerts” because I needed mellow melodies to play in the background while I worked on the manuscript. I didn’t want to listen to pop music with lyrics while writing; those songs call attention to themselves with their catchy tunes and words, and I’d end up singing along instead of concentrating on my story’s characters, settings, and situations.[1]
I bought “Great Concerts” because it includes a recording of Leroy Anderson’s “Forgotten Dreams,” a beautiful and melancholic piece I wanted to listen to while I wrote a scene involving my character Marty (Martina Elizabeth Reynaud). She’s the “one that got away” in my protagonist/narrator Jim Garraty’s story in both Reunion: A Story and the novel I’m writing, Reunion: Coda, and when I heard Mantovani’s cover on a YouTube video earlier that week, I adopted it as Marty’s Theme.
Of course, after spending money on an album “just for one track” I don’t play that song and ignore the rest; I listen to the entire recording – more or less, anyway.[2] This album has 24 tracks, after all, and even though I don’t necessarily love all of them, I let them play in the background while I do my “writer stuff.”
I love Mantovani’s admittedly over-lush version of Anderson’s “Forgotten Dreams” (although I like the original orchestration more), so most of the other tracks in “Great Concert” faded – psychologically – into the background as I wrote the scene that introduces Maddie in an early chapter of Reunion: Coda. But when I was typing “That’s when I hear her voice. ‘Excuse me, she says, “Is this seat taken?’” Track 13…”All the Things You Are” began to play.
I’m not sure if it was because I was wistfully remembering past loves or that I was introducing Jim Garraty’s love interest (to myself and the novel). Probably both reasons are valid. Whatever it was, the sweeping, dreamy Mantovani arrangement of Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein’s “All the Things You Are” – an abridged version of a “showstopper” from a mostly-forgotten 1939 Broadway musical, Very Warm for May – grabbed me by the lapels…and hasn’t let go since.
Since that seemingly long-ago spring day in 2023, I’ve heard many variations of “All the Things You Are.” Even in its shorter pop version (the original, longer showstopper is rarely performed), this song from a Broadway “bomb” is now a beloved standard performed by many artists in different styles.
For your listening pleasure (and, of course, mine), here are some of my favorite versions of this great song.
[1] The only exception to this is when I write a scene set in the Moonglow Club or a love scene where a specific song is mentioned. Even if I can’t, for copyright reasons, quote the song’s lyrics, I listen to songs such as “As Time Goes By” or “Moonglow” to immerse myself in my characters’ world.
[2] Over a year later, I usually skip the first track of “Great Concerts” – a rendition of Sousa’s “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” At first, I did this because I didn’t want to disturb the occupants of the two adjacent bedrooms in the house where I lived. Now I skip it mostly out of habit, although I also think the piece works better for me as a finale.
A Certain Point of View, Too 
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