Just One of Those Things (song)


"Just One of Those Things" is a popular song written by Cole Porter for the 1935 musical Jubilee.
Porter had written the score for Jubilee while on an extended sea cruise in the early part of 1935: however, in September 1935 while he was visiting a friend's farm in Ohio with Jubilee's librettist Moss Hart, the latter mentioned that the play's second act required an additional song, and Porter had "Just One of Those Things" completed by the following morning. Porter's original lyric lacked an adjective for the line "a trip to the moon on gossamer wings": "gossamer" would be suggested by his friend, Ed Tauch.
A recording by Richard Himber reached the charts of the day in 1935 and Peggy Lee's stylized arrangement of the song was a No. 14 hit in the Billboard charts in 1952.

Other recordings

The song has become a standard of the American Songbook, with many other recordings having been made of it. Among artists who have recorded it are Ella Fitzgerald, Anita O'Day, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Bing Crosby, Doris Day, Lena Horne, Maxine Sullivan, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Hartman, Mel Torme, Louis Prima, Diana Krall, John Barrowman, Bryan Ferry, Lionel Hampton, Claude Bolling, Charlie Parker, Gil Evans, Dave Brubeck, Freddie Hubbard, Oscar Peterson, Lee Morgan, Sidney Bechet, Nellie McKay, Erin McKeown, Joan Morris, Judy Garland, Patricia Barber, Johnny Dorelli, Jamie Cullum, Dionne Warwick, The Pogues with Kirsty MacColl and the Cherry Poppin' Daddies. Nat King Cole recorded it as the title track of his 1957 album Just One Of Those Things. Maurice Chevalier included it in a Cole Porter medley on his farewell album, released on his 80th birthday. Shirley Bassey recorded the song in 1963 for her EP In Other Words....

Film appearances

In 1958, Polly Bergen and guests Dick Van Dyke and Carol Haney performed "Just One of Those Things" on her short-lived NBC variety show, The Polly Bergen Show. Also on television, Diana Dors plays a nightclub singer who sings the song in the 1963 "Run for Doom" episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.
In 2019, actress Helena Bonham Carter performed a rendition of the song in the third season premiere of The Crown, while her character, Princess Margaret, is at a dinner party.