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"Fly Me to the Moon", originally titled "In Other Words", is a popular song written in 1954 by Bart Howard. Kaye Ballard made the first recording of the song in 1954. Since then it has become a frequently recorded jazz standard often featured in popular culture. Frank Sinatra's 1964 version was closely associated with the Apollo missions to the Moon.

Writing the song and its earliest public performance
In 1954, when writing the song which would become famous as "Fly Me to the Moon", Bart Howard had been pursuing a career in music for more than 20 years. He played piano to accompany cabaret singers but also wrote songs with Cole Porter, his idol, in mind. In response to a publisher's request for a simpler song, Bart Howard wrote a cabaret balled in waltz time which he titled "In Other Words". A publisher tried to make him change some lyrics from "fly me to the moon" to "take me to the moon" but Howard refused to do this. Many years later Howard commented that “... it took me 20 years to find out how to write a song in 20 minutes".

He used his position as a piano accompanist and presenter at the Blue Angel cabaret venue to promote the song and it was soon introduced in cabaret performances by Felicia Sanders.

Early recordings of "In Other Words"
Kaye Ballard made the first commercial recording of "In Other Words". It was released in April 1954. A brief review published on 8 May 1954 in Billboard said that "In Other Words" was "A love song sung with feeling by Miss Ballard." This recording was released as the flipside of "Lazy Afternoon" which Kaye Ballard was currently performing as star of the stage show The Golden Apple. A presentation of this recording on YouTube has had more than 77,000 hits since it was uploaded in 2010.

During the next few years jazz and cabaret singers released cover versions of "In Other Words" on EP or LP record albums including Chris Connor, Johnny Mathis, Portia Nelson and Nancy Wilson. Eydie Gormé featured the song on her 1958 album Eydie In Love which reached #20 in the Cashbox Album Charts and was nominated for a Grammy award.

Becoming more popular as "Fly Me To The Moon"
In 1960 Peggy Lee recorded the song then made it more popular when she performed it in front of a large television audience on The Ed Sullivan Show. As the song's popularity increased, it became better known as "Fly Me To The Moon" and in 1963 Peggy Lee convinced Bart Howard to make the name change official. In the early 1960s versions of the song were released under its new name by many well known singers, e.g., Nat King Cole, Sarah Vaughan and Brenda Lee. Connie Francis released two non-English versions of the song in 1963: in Italian as "Portami Con Te" and in Spanish as "Llévame A La Luna".

In 1962 Joe Harnell arranged and recorded an instrumental version in a bossa nova style. It was released as a single in late 1962, reached #14 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in early 1963 and won Harnell a Grammy award. Harnell's version was included on his album Fly Me To The Moon And The Bossa Nova Pops released in early 1963 which reached #3 stereo album on the Billboard 200 chart. Versions of the song were released by many other 1960s instrumental artists, e.g., Roy Haynes, Al Hirt and Oscar Peterson.

Frank Sinatra included the song on his 1964 album It Might as Well Be Swing accompanied by Count Basie. The music for this album was arranged by Quincy Jones who had worked with Count Basie a year earlier on the album This Time By Basie which also included a version of "Fly Me To The Moon". Will Friedwald comments that: "Jones boosted the tempo and put it into an even four/four" for Basie's version but "when Sinatra decided to address it with the Basie/Jones combination they recharged it into a straight swinger... [which]...all but explodes with energy".

Bart Howard estimated that by the time Frank Sinatra covered the song in 1964 more than 100 other versions had been recorded. By 1995 it had been recorded more than 300 times. A search of the website Second Hand Songs will list more than 150 versions of the song in chronological order.

Association with the Apollo 11 Moon Landing Mission
Frank Sinatra's 1964 recording of "Fly Me To The Moon" became closely associated with NASA's Apollo space program. A copy of the song was played on the Apollo 10 mission which orbited the moon. It became "the first music ever heard on the moon" when played on a portable cassette player by Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin after he stepped onto the moon. The song’s association with Apollo 11 was reprised many years later when Diana Krall sang it at the mission's 40th anniversary commemoration ceremony. She also sang a “slow and solemn version” in 2012 at the national memorial service for Apollo 11 mission commander Neil Armstrong.

In popular culture
"Fly Me To The Moon" has often been used or referenced in popular culture including television shows, films and video games. In 1967 an episode of I Dream of Jeannie was titled "Fly Me to The Moon". In the 1978-82 series WKRP in Cincinnati, character Jennifer Marlowe's doorbell plays the song. In 1998 Sesame Street featured Tony Bennett performing a parody of the song for an action sequence in which the show's character Slimey the Worm took a trip to the moon. The song has been featured in film soundtracks e.g. the 1987 film Wall Street and the 2001 film Bridget Jones's Diary. "Fly Me To The Moon" was the ending theme song for the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion. The song was also used extensively in the 2010 video game Bayonetta.

Recognition as a "Towering Song"
In 1999 The USA based Songwriters Hall of Fame recognised the importance of "Fly Me to the Moon" by inducting it as a "Towering Song" which is an award "...presented each year to the creators of an individual song that has influenced our culture in a unique way over many years.”