I Don't Think I Ever

I Joined Count Basie's Band To Make A Little Money And To See The World. For Two Years I Didn't See Anything But The Inside Of A Blue Goose Bus, And I Never Got To Send Home A Quarter.

So I Asked Him To Play "trav'lin' All Alone." That Came Closer Than Anything To The Way I Felt. And Some Part Of It Must Have Come Across. The Whole Joint Quieted Down. If Someone Had Dropped A Pin, It Would Have Sounded Like A Bomb. When I Finished, Everybody In The Joint Was Crying In Their Beer, And I Picked Thirty-eight Bucks Up Off The Floor. . . . When I Showed Mom The Money For The Rent And Told Her I Had A Regular Job Singing For Eighteen Dollars A Week, She Could Hardly Believe It.

I Can Only Sing Songs My Way. I Don't Know Any Other Way.

Singing Songs Like 'the Man I Love' Or 'porgy' Is No More Work Than Sitting Down And Eating Chinese Roast Duck, And I Love Roast Duck.

I Hate Straight Singing. I Have To Change A Tune To My Own Way Of Doing It. That's All I Know.