Published On Aug 16, 2017
Impromptu lyrics to a movie theme from 1955
inspired by a poem by W.B. YEATS, and a favorite of
Marilyn Monroe, star of the film THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH
directed by Billy Wilder.
Music composed by Alfred Newman
background music in THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON scene in the film
I would retitle this music as "LOVE THEME from THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH " ( 1955)
Lyric adaptation : Albert Diner
vocal by Albert Diner
NEVER GIVE ALL THE HEART FOR LOVE
THAT FADES FROM KISS TO KISS
FOR EVERYTHING THAT'S LOVELY
IS BUT A BRIEF DELIGHT
NEVER GIIVE YOUR HEART OUTRIGHT
I WHO MADE THIS KNOWS THE COST
FOR I GAVE ALL THE HEART AND LOST
NEVER GIVE ALL THE HEART FOR LOVE
THAT FADES FROM KISS TO KISS
NEVER GIVE ALL THE HEART FOR LOVE
THAT FADES FROM KISS TO KISS
FOR EVERYTHING THAT'S LOVELY
IS BUT A BRIEF DELIGHT
NEVER GIVE YOUR HEART OUTRIGHT
Can you imagine Marilyn Monroe reciting this poem to
Carl Sandburg, Norman Rosten , Arthur Miller, Lee Strasberg
and others who were close to her:
Never give all the Heart
BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
Never give all the heart, for love
Will hardly seem worth thinking of
To passionate women if it seem
Certain, and they never dream
That it fades out from kiss to kiss;
For everything that’s lovely is
But a brief, dreamy, kind delight.
O never give the heart outright,
For they, for all smooth lips can say,
Have given their hearts up to the play.
And who could play it well enough
If deaf and dumb and blind with love?
He that made this knows all the cost,
For he gave all his heart and lost.
The Nobel Prize in Literature 1923 was awarded to William Butler Yeats "for his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation".