Love for Sale (song)

Love for Sale is a jazz standard of Cole Porter in 1930, from the musical The New Yorkers.

Background

The song is written from the perspective of a prostitute, which offers various kinds of venal love (" old love, new love, every love but true love" ). The song was a hit in 1930, but was later found to be too lewd and shunned for decades by the radio stations.

The song was recorded by many jazz musicians, including by Billie Holiday ( 1945), Oscar Peterson (1953 ), Ella Fitzgerald ( 1956), Tony Bennett ( 1957), Miles Davis and Cannonball Adderley (1958), Chet Baker, The Manhattan Transfer (1976 ), Harry Connick Jr., Dave Brubeck and many others. On the Cole Porter tribute album Red Hot Blue ( 1990), it was interpreted by the Fine Young Cannibals. Boney M. released a disco version on the album Love for Sale. Other cover versions are from Elvis Costello or Simply Red

Irwin Winkler used the song in the film De - Lovely - The Cole Porter Story ( USA, 2004) in a scene in a gay nightclub. Brian De Palma used the song in a similar setting in his film The Black Dahlia (2006). Harvey Fierstein sang it as a drag queen in his film Torch Song Trilogy (1988, The Cuckoo's Egg ).