The verse describes the author's weariness of the night life after a failed romance, wasting time with "jazz and cocktails" at "come-what-may places" and in the company of girls with "sad and sullen gray faces/ with
distingué traces". Strayhorn was a teenager when he wrote most of the song, which was to become one of his signature compositions, along with "
Take the 'A' Train". The song was written in the key of
D-flat major. During a 1949 interview, Strayhorn spoke of the song's genesis: "'Lush Life' wasn't the first tune of mine Duke [Ellington] heard. In fact, he didn't hear it until just a little while ago. I wrote it in 1936 while I was clerking at the Pennfield drugstore on the corner of Washington and Penn in Pittsburgh …. I was writing a song a day then, and I've forgotten many of them myself …. One night I remembered it and played it for Duke …. I called it 'Life is Lonely,' but when anyone wanted me to play it they'd ask for 'that thing about lush life'."
Mercer Ellington, though, recalled that "Lush Life" and "
Something to Live For" were the songs responsible for Duke Ellington's decision to hire Strayhorn in early 1939.
Nat King Cole recorded "Lush Life" in 1949, while trumpeter
Harry James recorded it four times. In the 1950s, it was recorded by jazz vocalists
Ella Fitzgerald,
Carmen McRae,
Sarah Vaughan, and
Chris Connor.
John Coltrane recorded it twice. The first was a 14-minute version recorded in 1958 as the title track of
an album for
Prestige with trumpeter
Donald Byrd. The other was on
John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, with vocalist
Johnny Hartman, recorded in 1963, which Gioia notes "cast a long shadow over all later attempts to perform" the song.
Linda Ronstadt's version won the
Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocal(s) (1986).
Kurt Elling recorded a version for his tribute album
Dedicated to You: Kurt Elling Sings the Music of Coltrane and Hartman (2009). ==Some other notable versions==