Once again, Mary Ellen Desmond dropped by before her Thursday gig at L2 restaurant to try another song, a ballad this time, the sad Good Morning, Heartache, which has become one of Mary Ellen’s favorites.  She said she never sang it back when everyone else did, but now that she’s waited and let the fad pass, so to speak, she’s come to savor it a different perspective and fresh ears.

      Billie Holliday was one of the composers of this tune (under her real name of Irene Higgenbotham), along with Ervin Drake and Dan Fisher.  She recorded it in 1946.

     The song’s popularity was given a huge boost when it was featured in the 1972 film about Billie Holliday, A Lady Sings the Blues, which starred the unlikely Diana Ross.  (The industry viewed her casting very skeptically as Ross neither looked nor sounded like Holliday, but she wowed the critics with her faithful rendering of Holliday’s phrasing and earned a Best Actress nomination.)  I think I first heard the song through the movie.

     In any case, it’s a poignant ballad with lyrics whose personification of the heartache is I think very effective.  As with many of the weekly tunes, this one was done on the fly, but Mary Ellen, as always, does a nice job with it.  And we weren’t late for the L2 gig…

Click above to hear it.  The lyrics are below.

 Good morning heartache
You old gloomy sight
Good morning heartache
Thought we said goodbye last night
I turned and tossed until it seemed you had gone

But here you are with the dawn
Wish I’d forget you, but you’re here to stay
It seems I met you
When my love went away
Now everyday I start by saying to you
”Good morning, heartache, what’s new?”

Bridge:
Stop haunting me now
Can’t shake you no how.
Just leave me alone
I’ve got those Monday blues,
Straight through Sunday blues

Good morning heartache
Here we go again
Good morning heartache
You’re the one
Who knows me when
Might as well get use to you hanging around
Good morning, heartache,
Sit down