Song Lyric Sunday: “Rose Room”

Jim took another of Paula’s prompt ideas this week and assigned us the words "house, room, kitchen, shower, attic." I got another oldie for you…

"Rose Room" is a song that was written in 1917 by Art Hickman for his orchestra. It does have lyrics that written by Harry Williams, but it’s almost always performed as an instrumental. It was named for the Rose Room at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, where Hickman was playing at the time.

It’s a jazz standard, meaning there are hundreds of versions out there, including this one by Django Reinhardt and the Quintette du Hot Club de France in the 1930’s.

Other versions were done by the Benny Goodman Sextet (including an incredible solo by Charlie Christian), Duke Ellington, and others. Here is a 1928 recording of the song by The Piccadilly Players, the vocal by The Rollickers.

This is a screenshot with the lyrics, from another video of the song. The person who put this together was trying to get people to like and subscribe, so you can ignore the parentheticals on the last two lines…

That’s Song Lyric Sunday and Song of the Day for December 5, 2021.