Just The Moon
Just the moon calls to mind the early 20th century, an era that gave rise to a spectacular succession of popular musical styles, from piano ragtime at the turn of the century to swing in the late 20s. At that point, the Great Depression and the rise of talking pictures changed a lot of things, but not in Just The Moon’s universe.
It’s just lunacy, this mooning about for love, Walt says. And he ought to know, if you judge by the long parade of one thing or another he’s had to learn from. But even if the Moon is no more than the Moon, and not (as Walt claims to have been taught), Aphrodite’s bottom, it is by far the largest-seeming romantic celestial object available, and moreover an excellent rhyming word that only a jejune buffoon could find inopportune. Songwriters are generally powerless to resist it.
The Music
The simple 16-bar progression goes around without interruption for eight quick verses, so this is an easy song to pick up when jamming with a group. The E7 chords do arrive a couple of beats ahead of the downbeat where you might initially expect them, but that’s the only trick.
The piano part does not repeat – each verse is a distinct variation. Walt wishes us to point out that the piano verses could be reordered at will, yielding more than 40,000 effectively different songs from the non-repeating combinations alone. He would also like us to say that this amounts to an incredible discount for purchasers of the music. Such is Walt.
Players who find the piano part as written to be technically difficult can try selectively thinning the chords, or simply drop trickier verses and reuse easier ones.
Verse 1
E7 A
Just the moon reflected in your smile,
E7 A
Just an old-time tune floating up and down the dial;
A7 D C#7
It’s just a serenade the hit parade
D6 A
Hasn’t played in quite a while;
E7 E13 A
It’s just a tune, and babe it’s just the moon.
Verse 2
Just a kiss that lasted all night long;
It was bliss and then it was gone;
Just a lost embrace that once took place
While a thousand stars looked on;
It was bliss, but it was just a kiss.
Verse 3
It’s just love that does that to your eye,
You will find they flow less easy by and by.
They say it’s better to have loved and lost
Than never learned to cry,
They don’t say why – baby, it’s just love.
Verse 3 reprise and coda
It’s just love that does that to your eye
You will find they flow less easy by and by.
They say it’s better to have loved and lost
Than never learned to cry,
You might ask why – baby, it’s just love.
E7 E13 A
Don’t ask why, don’t ask why – it’s just love.
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