One of the most complex and sophisticated jazz standards ever written, "Lush Life" is a monumental song because it was one of the first songs that took us into the stories of a queer Black man and his experiences in the 1930s and 1940s. Lush Life basically serves as a biography for Billy Strayhorn, Duke Ellington’s writing partner. Ellington is remembered as a 6’1” elegant, almost regal figure towering above the piano, a charming, meticulously dressed womanizer who had a way of instantly commanding respect without even trying. Strayhorn, his partner in crime, was a 5’ 2” shy, soft spoken, unassuming, gay man who had a quiet genius beneath his bespectacled exterior. Unlike Ellington who grew up amongst the Black upper-middle class in Washington DC and was well known in his 20s, David Hadju, one of his biographers explained that “Strayhorn was a raw talent with no professional experience until Ellington discovered him and groomed him in his own image” (Hadju 1997, preface).
The 1940s were a dangerous time for a queer Black man like Strayhorn to be alive even in the North. In a Medium article by the author Matthew Kohut, he explains that [Ellington] treated Strayhorn as a musical equal almost from the start and gave him a great deal of latitude to write and arrange as he wanted. Strayhorn had what looked like a dream job that paid him well. And he could be himself. He lived openly as a gay man and was accepted for who he was. The Ellington world was a safe haven within a society that discriminated against both his race and sexual orientation” (Kohut, 2020). Strayhorn was frequently overlooked and didn’t receive the credit he deserved but he preferred to be left out of the spotlight due to his quiet introspective demeanor. That being said, in a 1996 New York Times article, Will Friedwald, an American author and music critic did not have as great an opinion on Ellington and Strayhorn’s relationship. He explained that their longtime friend Lena Horne argued that ''their relationship was very sexual. Don't misunderstand -- it wasn't physical at all. . . . Duke treated Billy exactly like he treated women, with all that old-fashioned chauvinism. Very loving and very protective, but controlling (Friedwald et al).”
Born in 1919 in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, Billy Strayhorn had a difficult childhood. His father was an abusive alcoholic who was no match for a quiet, intellectual, mild-mannered kid like Strayhorn was. Strayhorn was known for his bravery throughout his life from playing piano center-stage as a black man in an all white orchestra to being openly queer and out in the 1940s. In a 1949 article, Strayhorn remarked that he “wrote it in 1936 while (he) was clerking at the Pennfield drugstore on the corner of Washington and Penn in Pittsburgh …. (He) was writing a song a day then, and I've forgotten many of them myself …. One night (he) remembered it and played it for Duke …. (He) called it 'Life is Lonely,' but when anyone wanted (him) to play it they'd ask for 'that thing about lush life'." (Downbeat Magazine, 15) Strayhorn was still a teenager when he wrote much of the song – it is an interesting thought to imagine the depth of life experiences of someone who was still in high school at the time he wrote the song. During his lifetime, the general public knew very little about Strayhorn. In fact, David Hadju states, “From 1939 when he began his association with Ellington until his death from cancer in 1967, The Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature listed precisely one article on the subject of Billy Strayhorn” (Hadju).
Lush life is also unusual in the sense that the verse is an essential part of the song. 90% of jazz standards that have lyrics contain rarely performed verses called throwaway verses (often for a good reason). Lush Life’s verse is so unique and haunting in its own right that it is a quintessential part of the song.
Ellington was impressed by the structure of this song, which included two different harmonic techniques that were becoming popular at the time (chromatic harmonies and stacked fourth harmonies). Many people interchange Ellington and Strayhorn’s compositions with each other, however, there are noticeable differences between the two. Ellington’s pieces tend to be more blues-oriented whereas Strayhorns use the stacked fourths and impressionistic harmonies of Romantic-era composers like Debussy and Ravel, whom he possibly studied with his childhood piano teacher. I always imagine if loneliness was a sound, it would be the sound of the chromatic harmonies in the first part of Lush Life.
Like many Ellington/Strayhorn songs, Lush Life revolves around several small ideas or motifs that reappear throughout the song as the keys change. It was a notoriously complex and difficult song to sing which is why it wasn’t the most successful song on the pop charts. In his substack blog, pianist Ethan Iverson described the form as “long and sticky” (Iverson, 2025). In fact, in an article by Reservoir, “Frank Sinatra’s take on Billy Strayhorn’s elegant “Lush Life” had not seen the light of day outside of recording studio archives – until now. On October 11th, Capital Records premiered the lyric video of Sinatra’s demo recording of Strayhorn’s composition, which was ultimately left incomplete in apparent dissatisfaction with his own performance. “Put this aside for a minute,” the session conductor says, followed by Sinatra’s retort, “Put it aside for about a year!” (Reservoir, 2018)
Back in Washington State where I grew up, I would take long bike rides through the forest on warm, dry August days. As I heard the wind whistle through the douglas fir trees, I would hear the opening verse in the back of my mind. Strayhorn’s stacked fourths create an open sound – they remind me of tall majestic trees reaching up to the blue sky. Despite the song's title, something about the songs energy reminded me of the forest at this time of year – the crispy madrone leaves, the sharp lemon-lime scent of the pine needles exfoliating, the dry dust leaving a trail behind me, and the wind rushing through the trees just as lonely as Strayhorn was behind the counter of the drugstore. The chord progression has a melancholy, heavy and sad feeling to it – almost like a haze.
I asked Mercedes Ellington, Duke Ellington’s granddaughter in her interview at NYU with Professor Dave Schroder about Strayhorn. She said that she was “always his always favorite grandchild in the room and there wasn’t a moment in which he wasn't cordial and happy to see her.” Mercedes was a child whose parents weren’t married (it took her years to find who her mother was and the only organization that accepted her was the Girl Scouts) suffered a lot at a time when this wasn’t conventional and Strayhorn being an openly gay man in the 1940s had a deep understanding of that feeling of being the odd one out.
Part of the appeal of this song is the fact that it is about someone's actual life. In the pre-rock era, artists and songwriters mostly kept their lives private, at least for polished middle class music. Blues and country were oftentimes considered the music of the private sphere – it was a bold move for Strayhorn to talk about a subject so personal. Strayhorn’s song revealed a state that many adults were feeling at the time – lonely, cynical, and alcoholic in a whirlwind of broken dreams, conformity, and general disappointment with life.
The Tin Pan Alley songs of the 1920s and 30s often followed a similar formula – happy upbeat sounding tunes talking about love and then marriage with nothing more than holding hands. Although the context was different and they were much different conceptually (these were tunes open to interpretation instead of modern tunes with a set arrangement) they were family friendly tunes similar to modern inoffensive pop music (like Happy by Pharrel Williams, Die With A Smile, etc). Tunes like “Blue Skies,” “When You’re Smiling” etc. were very popular in homes across America where there were pianos in every living room back when sheet music was popular. Lush Life was an interesting departure from the pop music of the past. It was real, raw, and human unlike these earlier songs that were always sunshiny and happy, manufactured for chart success. In fact, it wouldn’t have even been considered a pop song at the time. Lush Life is an early example of an interesting phenomena in the world of pop music that we are still seeing to this day – authenticity vs. artifice in pop music.
Due to the influence of singer-songwriters like Bob Dylan and Joni Michell in the 1960s, folk, hip hop, and R&B listeners have come to expect a level of autobiographical authenticity from songwriters. Strayhorn was a precursor to a new era – an era in which songwriters brought their personal lives into their work and connected with their audiences through shared experiences. Unfortunately, he was a victim of his own chaotic lifestyle and died in 1967. Strayhorn influenced other songwriters such as Burt Bacharach and eventually Stevie Wonder years later to use chromaticism and personal subject matter in some of their most famous tunes.
Original 1948 version: "Lush Life" performed by Kay Davis and Billy Strayhorn [First documented recording]
A modern version by Lady Gaga: "Lush Life"
Works Cited
Hadju, D. (1996). Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Downbeat Magazine (1949). “New Hit, 'Lush Life,' Is Not New."” Downbeat, 1949, New Hit, 'Lush Life,' Is Not New." Down Beat, 12 August 1949, 2.
Friedwald, W. (1996) “Lush Life.” New York Times, 15 July 1996,
Iverson, E. (2025). “TT 547: Core Repertoire pt. 2: Standards.” Transitional Technology.
Kohut, M. (2020). “Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life.” Medium.
Reservoir Media (2018). “Frank Sinatra's Demo of Billy Strayhorn Lush Life Released After 60 Years.” reservoir-media.com.