What are you doing New Year’s Eve? No, we are not asking, just humming. Blame it on the season but how can anyone let new year pass, that too the end of the decade, without belting this legendary song written way back in 1947 by none other than Frank Loesser — yes, the same one who wrote ‘Baby, it’s cold outside’. (You do remember this song, don’t you? No? Run to YouTube).

Coming back to ‘New Year’s Eve’, really, it must be the most covered new year song ever. Everyone from the legendary Ella Fitzgerald to Frank Sinatra to The Carpenters and Barbra Streisand have sung it in various ways at various times.

In fact, a video version of the song by Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt has over 16 million views on YouTube though we prefer Fitzgerald’s version to any other. 

She ain’t called the ‘first lady of song’ without reason; in her voice, ‘New Year’s Eve’ takes on a happy-melancholic (yes, such a feeling exists) tenor ; drippy, but hopeful, casually deep and off-handedly evocative.

However, if jazz is not your thing for December 31st, maybe you should try ABBA’s ‘Happy New Year’.

The Swedish crooners ask you, in no uncertain terms, ‘It’s the end of a decade/In another ten years’ time, who can say what we’ll find?’

Who can say indeed?

Play By Ear will showcase a potential earworm every week for you, the discerning listener, who is on the hunt for some musical serendipity and is keen to explore genres beyond pop and Bollywood.