When Sunny Gets Blue


"When Sunny Gets Blue" is a song written by Marvin Fisher and Jack Segal, which has become a jazz standard. The song was originally recorded by Johnny Mathis and Ray Conniff and his Orchestra in 1956 and became a big hit.

Notable recordings

"When Sunny Gets Blue" begins with the lyrics "When Sunny gets blue, her eyes get grey and cloudy; then the rain begins to fall." In 1984, DJ Rick Dees, a radio personality at Los Angeles radio station KIIS-FM, recorded a parody of the song for an album, including the lyrics "When Sunny sniffs glue, her eyes get red and bulgy, then her hair begins to fall". Dees sought permission to use the lyrics, but was refused; subsequently, he used 38 bars of the song under the fair use doctrine. In 1986, composers Marvin Fisher and Jack Segal sued Dees for copyright violation and defamation in U.S. District Court for Los Angeles. At the request of the parties involved, the district court issued a summary judgment, finding for Dees. Fisher appealed the case to the U.S Court of Appeals for the 9th District, in Pasadena, California. The appellate court affirmed the judgment of the lower court in Fisher v. Dees 794 F.2d 432, stating that the parody was intended to "criticize" for the purposes of humor, not to "copy", and did not damage the marketability of the original because they were two different markets of music. The case has become a landmark one, further refining the doctrine of fair use in U.S. copyright law.