My Shining Hour
"My Shining Hour" is a song composed by Harold Arlen with lyrics by Johnny Mercer for the film The Sky's the Limit. In the film, the song is sung by Sally Sweetland, who dubbed it for actress Joan Leslie. The orchestra was led by Freddie Slack. "My Shining Hour" was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song but lost to "You'll Never Know".
The film was released on July 13, 1943. The song became a hit by Glen Gray with Eugenie Baird as vocalist reaching No. 4 in the Billboard charts. The song's title may have been a reference to Winston Churchill's speech to British citizens during World War II: "if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, this was their finest hour."
In the 1944 film Youth Runs Wild an instrumental version of the song plays during a scene with Kent Smith and Glen Vernon. The song was also used in the film Radio Stars on Parade when it was sung by Frances Langford accompanied by the Skinnay Ennis orchestra.Other notable recordings
- 1943 Mabel Mercer
- 1955 Warren Galjour, The Music Of Harold Arlen: The Walden Sessions.
- 1960 Ella Fitzgerald, Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Harold Arlen Songbook.
- 1961 John Coltrane, Coltrane Jazz
- 1963 Nancy Wilson, Hollywood – My Way
- 1965 Sammy Davis Jr., Our Shining Hour
- 1965 Liza Minnelli, It Amazes Me
- 1977 June Christy, Impromptu
- 1980 Frank Sinatra, '
- 1983 Rosemary Clooney, Rosemary Clooney Sings the Music of Harold Arlen
- 1993 Peggy Lee, '
- 2006 Barbra Streisand, Live in Concert 2006
