What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve? — a widely misunderstood invitation

Last month Norah Jones released her first ever seasonal album, I Dream of Christmas. Amid the classics (“White Christmas”) and self-penned songs (“Christmas Glow”) is a track that has become a festive stalwart since it was written in 1947: “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?”.

It’s a dreamy, smoochy, romantic number that would seem ideally suited to the time of year. And yet its composer, the great Frank Loesser, was irked by what he saw as its misappropriation. Most singers, he said, miss the point: the song’s narrator is posing the question some considerable time in advance. She (or he) is wondering if they are in a long-term relationship.

Maybe it’s much too early in the game, Ah, but I thought I’d ask you just the same, What are you doing New Year’s, New Year’s Eve?

Many of the hundreds of versions that have been recorded insert a snippet of “Auld Lang Syne” at the beginning or the end — indeed, this is the case with the first recording, by Kay Kyser and his Orchestra(with crooned vocals by Harry Babbitt), and the first version to be released, by Margaret Whiting,both from 1947. They all misunderstand Loesser’s intention.

Loesser’s daughter Susan, in her biography of her father, A Most Remarkable Fella: Frank Loesser And The Guys And Dolls In His Life, wrote that the song is actually set in early spring. “The singer, madly in love, is making a (possibly rash) commitment far into the future . . . It always annoyed my father when the song was sung during the holidays.” (Loesser, incidentally, had written another song in 1944 that later became wreathed in far greater controversy, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”, covered recently in this column.)

But Loesser had bigger fish to fry. Already a successful songwriter, soon after he wrote “What Are You Doing . . .” he returned to New York from a stint writing for Hollywood musicals and by 1950 had finished work on perhaps the greatest of all Broadway shows, Guys and Dolls.

“What Are You Doing . . .”, meanwhile, became a standard. An early cover came from the doo-wop band The Oriolesin 1949. Though doo-wop had become a popular street entertainment in the US in the 1940s, especially in African American neighbourhoods, it hadn’t had much chart presence; the Baltimore vocal group’s recording of “What Are You Doing . . .” helped push the genre into the mainstream, where it enjoyed popularity into the rock’n’roll era and beyond. (Space does not permit a digression into topics such as the doo-wop gang wars of Baltimore or the highly sexualised performances of groups such as The Orioles.) Their version features soulful vocal flourishes that place it firmly in the tradition of black American music.

Another memorable cover came from Ella Fitzgerald(1960): her version includes the little-used prelude to the first verse, while her vocal performance is typically effortless.

Perhaps a peak was reached in 1963 by Nancy Wilson,whose idiosyncratic phrasing — running lines into each other, leaving a half-beat pause before a new line — creates a conversational mood. Her voice has a heartwarming brilliance, as if she is singing with a smile. She can see a bright future in this burgeoning relationship.

The Carpenters’ 1984 recording,while similarly optimistic, is mellifluous to the point of being treacly, especially when Disneyish backing singers come to the fore and an unauthorised key change kicks in.

Though few have messed with the song’s formula or even its rhythm, many have mined the melancholy that can pervade New Year, among them — perhaps unsurprisingly — Rufus Wainwrighton the family album The McGarrigle Christmas Hour album (2005), Wainwright anguishing over mournful piano and violin.

Also in 2005, Diana Krallrecorded a distinguished version with tamped, distant horns, sparse double bass and ringing electric guitar. She sounds as though she is not expecting a reassuring answer to the song’s question. In the same year, The Brian Setzer Orchestramade the answer self-evident with a version that kicks and swings with big-band oomph.

In 2011, actors (and friends) Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt made a sweet, slight video with their version, their fine voices harmonising tightly while Deschanel strums a ukulele and Levitt plays acoustic guitar. In 2013, the late saxophonist Pee Wee Ellisreleased a suave, grown-up version with Clare Teal singing.

Most recently, Steve Perryfollowed Norah Jones with a Christmas album version. The former Journey singer possesses a preternaturally lustrous set of pipes, which he uses to memorable effect on his classy, mellow reading — brushed drums, piano and double bass. And of course, right at the end, on the piano, compounding the seasonal misconception, there’s a snippet of “Auld Lang Syne”.

Share your memories of ‘What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?’ in the comments section below.

‘The Life of a Song Volume 2: The fascinating stories behind 50 more of the world’s best-loved songs’, edited by David Cheal and Jan Dalley, is published by Brewer’s.

Music credits: Blue Note; Capitol; Collectables; Verve; EMI; UMG; Nonesuch; Surfdog Records; Minor Music; OMT Productions

Picture credit: Getty Images