Somebody Loves Me — Free Lead Sheet PDF (Eb, Bb, Concert)

Music by George Gershwin · Published 1924 · Melody & chords only

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About Somebody Loves Me

An Early Gershwin Standard from a Broadway Revue Series

Somebody Loves Me was composed by George Gershwin, with lyrics by Ballard MacDonald and Buddy DeSylva, published in 1924 and featured in George White’s Scandals of 1924. Unlike a book musical with a continuous plot, the Scandals were an annual Broadway revue produced by George White, showcasing new songs, dance numbers and comedy sketches in a fresh edition each year through the 1920s and into the early 1930s.

Gershwin composed the scores for five consecutive editions of the Scandals between 1920 and 1924, and Somebody Loves Me was one of the standout songs from his final year working on the series before he moved on to book musicals and concert works. Unusually for a Gershwin standard, this one was not written with his brother Ira as lyricist — that partnership, so central to tunes like The Man I Love and Someone to Watch Over Me, would not fully take hold until a few years later.

The chart on this page offers the melody and chords, no lyrics. The tune was an immediate hit, becoming a top-ten success for Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra in 1924 and going on to be recorded by more than 300 artists in the decades since.

The Form & Harmony

A 32-Bar Standard Built on Chromatic Mediant Colour

Somebody Loves Me is a 32-bar standard in the key of F, verified against the engraved chart used for this page. Its most distinctive harmonic feature arrives early: after a straightforward F6–G‹7–A‹7–B¨7 opening, the tune moves in bar 9 from F6 directly to a Db major seventh chord — a chromatic mediant relationship rather than a conventional diatonic move, giving the melody a sudden, glowing shift in colour.

That chromatic mediant idea recurs throughout the form. The tune closes its final A section the same way it opened its middle section, moving from C7 through Db major seventh and Eb7 back to F6 before landing once more on Gb major seventh — a striking, planing chord movement by half-step and whole-step that was ahead of its time for a 1924 popular song.

This kind of chromatic mediant colour, alongside the tune's more conventional ii–V movement elsewhere in the form, is part of why Somebody Loves Me has remained such a durable jazz vehicle: it gives a soloist genuinely interesting harmonic terrain to navigate, well beyond the diatonic simplicity of many tunes from the same era.

How to Play It on Saxophone

A Practical Approach to a Chromatic Medium-Swing Standard

1. Settle into a relaxed medium swing tempo. This tune works best at a comfortable medium tempo rather than as a ballad or an uptempo burner. Find that pocket early and let your phrasing sit naturally inside it.

2. Isolate the F6-to-Db major seventh move. The chromatic mediant shift in bar 9 is the tune's signature harmonic moment. Practise this move on its own, listening for the colour change, before playing it inside the full form.

3. Learn the harmony underneath the melody. Practise outlining the chord changes, including the closing chromatic descent through Db major seventh and Gb major seventh, so you have solid harmonic footing before improvising over the form.

4. Work on a relaxed, conversational phrasing style. The melody has a natural, singable quality. Focus on even articulation and a warm tone rather than heavy accents, letting the tune's chromatic colour do the expressive work.

5. Study Benny Goodman's 1936 recording of the tune. Listen to how Goodman's clarinet handles the chromatic mediant movement with a light touch and clear swing feel, balancing melodic clarity with rhythmic drive.

If you would like one-to-one guidance on swing feel, harmony 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 standards like this one.

Essential Recordings

Where to Start Listening

For a woodwind-led instrumental jazz treatment, seek out Benny Goodman and His Orchestra's recording from 5 November 1936, released on Victor 25497, where Goodman's clarinet carries the melody through the tune's chromatic movement with characteristic swing-era clarity.

The tune's earliest recording of note came from Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra in 1924, released as Victor 19414, which helped establish it as a top-ten hit within months of its Broadway introduction.

The tune has gone on to be recorded by singers including Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Shore and more than 300 other artists, alongside instrumentalists such as Lionel Hampton and Oscar Peterson. Comparing an early dance-band reading against a later small-group jazz version is a good way to hear how far the tune has travelled.

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 other early Gershwin standards, The Man I Love is a useful point of comparison — written just a few years later, once Gershwin's writing partnership with his brother Ira was fully established.