I've Got a Crush on You — Free Lead Sheet PDF (Eb, Bb, Concert)

Music by George Gershwin · Published 1930 · Melody & chords only

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About I've Got a Crush on You

A Song That Flopped Once, Then Got a Second Chance

I’ve Got a Crush on You was composed by George Gershwin, with lyrics by his brother Ira, written in 1928 for the Broadway musical Treasure Girl, where it was introduced by Clifton Webb and Mary Hay. It replaced another song cut during tryouts, but it made little difference — Treasure Girl closed after just 68 performances, and the song went down with it, unpublished.

The Gershwins clearly believed in the tune, because two years later they brought it back for the revised 1930 production of Strike Up the Band, where it was sung by Doris Carson and Gordon Smith and finally published for the first time. Even then, it took almost another decade to catch on: Gershwin had originally written it as a brisk, playful dance number, marked Allegretto giocoso in the score, and it was not until singer Lee Wiley recorded it as a slow ballad in 1939 that the song found the identity it has kept ever since.

The chart on this page offers the melody and chords, no lyrics. If you are also studying I Got Rhythm or the other Gershwin standards on this site, it is worth hearing how differently the brothers' fast, rhythmic writing and their more tender ballad material can sound — especially a tune like this one, which started out as the former and became famous as the latter.

The Form & Harmony

A Fast Tune Rewritten as a Ballad, in Every Way but the Notes

I’ve Got a Crush on You is a standard 32-bar AABA song form, most commonly played in the key of F, with a lyrical, singable melody built from short, repeated phrases — a shape well suited to Ira Gershwin’s conversational lyric. What makes the tune’s history genuinely unusual is that none of the notes changed between its two identities: George Gershwin’s melody and harmony are exactly the same whether it is played as the brisk dance number he originally wrote or the slow ballad the world now knows.

That means the tune is an unusually clear demonstration of how much tempo and interpretation alone can transform a piece of music. The same 32 bars that once accompanied a light, playful stage number became, at a slower tempo and with more space around the phrases, one of the more tender ballads in the Gershwin catalogue. There is no harmonic trick here — just a reminder that a chart on paper is only half the story, and the other half is entirely down to the performer’s choices.

Because the melody was built for a quicker tempo, it moves in fairly short, songful phrases rather than the long, sustained lines typical of ballads written to be slow from the start — worth bearing in mind when you shape your own phrasing, since breathing and pacing decisions that would suit a naturally slow melody may feel too spacious here.

How to Play It on Saxophone

A Practical Approach to a Ballad Born as a Dance Number

1. Learn the melody as a ballad, not a dance number. Gershwin wrote this tune fast and playful, but it is almost always played today as a slow ballad following Lee Wiley's influential 1939 reinterpretation. Learn it at ballad tempo from the start so that shape is built into your phrasing from the beginning.

2. Work rubato before you work in time. Practise the melody freely, shaping phrases the way a singer would, before locking it to a metronome. Ballads lose their character fast if they are drilled in strict time from the very first pass.

3. Learn the harmony underneath the melody. Practise outlining the chord changes on their own so you have solid harmonic footing before adding embellishment or improvising over the form.

4. Prioritise tone and dynamics over technique. At ballad tempo there is nowhere for a thin or unsteady tone to hide. Spend practice time on long tones, vibrato control and dynamic shading across the melody's phrases rather than on speed or technical facility.

5. Study how vocalists shape the lyric's phrasing. Listen to how singers like Lee Wiley, Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald phrase this tune, and let their sense of space and breath inform your own instrumental phrasing.

If you would like one-to-one guidance on ballad playing, tone development or building a wider jazz vocabulary, saxophone lessons in person in South East London or online are available. The free saxophone transcriptions on this site are also useful for hearing how great players navigate ballads and other standards.

Essential Recordings

Where to Start Listening

For a purely instrumental take, seek out Artie Shaw and his small-group unit, the Gramercy Five, who recorded this tune with Shaw's clarinet leading a compact swing combo. It is a good demonstration of how the tune plays as a pure melodic vehicle once the vocal is set aside.

On the vocal side, Lee Wiley's 1939 recording is the version that reinvented this tune as a ballad and permanently changed how it is understood. Frank Sinatra's November 1947 recording, with Bobby Hackett on trumpet, is essential listening for how a great vocalist shapes the melody’s short, songful phrases — he returned to the tune again in 1960 for his album Nice ‘n’ Easy.

Ella Fitzgerald's version from her 1959 Gershwin Song Book, arranged by Nelson Riddle, is a benchmark reading and contributed to the album’s Grammy win the following year. Comparing all three recordings side by side is one of the best ways to hear how much interpretive freedom a simple, well-built melody can support.

If you are working through the broader Great American Songbook repertoire, browse the online real book index for related tunes, all available as free lead sheet PDFs in Concert, Bb and Eb. If you are also studying I Got Rhythm, comparing Gershwin’s uptempo writing against this tune’s ballad afterlife is a good way to hear the range of his work.