Love for sale
Love for Sale is a jazz standard of Cole Porter from the year 1930 from the musical The New Yorkers .
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The song is written from the perspective of a prostitute who offers different kinds of love for sale (“old love, new love, every love but true love”) . The song was a hit in 1930, but was later found too lustful and shunned by radio stations for decades.
Cover versions
The song has been recorded by many jazz musicians, including Billie Holiday (1945), Joyce Bryant (1952), Oscar Peterson (1953), Ella Fitzgerald (1956), Tony Bennett (1957), Miles Davis and Cannonball Adderley (1958), Chet Baker , Aretha Franklin (1965), The Manhattan Transfer (1976), Harry Connick Jr. , Dave Brubeck , Jamie Cullum (2013) and many more. It was interpreted by the Fine Young Cannibals on the Cole Porter tribute album Red Hot + Blue (1990) . Boney M. released a disco version on the album Love for Sale. Other cover versions are by Elvis Costello , Simply Red , Helge Schneider or the brothers Julian and Roman Wasserfuhr .
Use in movies
- Irwin Winkler used the song in the film De-Lovely - The Cole Porter Story (USA, 2004) in a scene in a gay night club .
- Brian De Palma used the song in a similar setting in his film The Black Dahlia (2006).
- Harvey Fierstein sang him as drag queen in his film Torch Song Trilogy (1988, Das Kuckucksei ).