Published:
2018-07-16
Updated:
2018-12-07

Learning Ukulele with Curt

Lullaby of Birdland

Lullaby of Birdland is a 1952 popular song with music by George Shearing and lyrics by George David Weiss under the pseudonym "B. Y. Forster" in order to circumvent the rule that ASCAP and BMI composers could not collaborate. The song has become a jazz standard.

Author(s): Publisher: Code: UL559

Main Category: Jazz Main Instrument: Any

Subjects: Jazz, Arrangement

2026-08-19

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Lullaby of Birdland

Lullaby of Birdland is a 1952 popular song with music by George Shearing and lyrics by George David Weiss under the pseudonym "B. Y. Forster" in order to circumvent the rule that ASCAP and BMI composers could not collaborate. The song has become a jazz standard.

Lullaby of Birdland is in thirty-two bar form, and its original key was F minor (or A♭ major). The song spends an equal amount of time in both minor and major modes F Minor & Ab Major. It follows a IVIII7V7 harmonic progression, and it has a IVIø7IIø7V7 minor variation.

Shearing stated in his autobiography that he had composed the whole thing [...] within ten minutes. The chord changes were partly from Walter Donaldson's Love Me Or Leave Me.

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