“I Should Care” is a lyrical 32–bar ballad from the mid-1940s that became a core jazz standard, recorded by everyone from Frank Sinatra to Bud Powell and Bill Evans.
Song background
- Written in 1944–45 by Sammy Cahn (lyrics) with Axel Stordahl and Paul Weston for the MGM film “Thrill of a Romance.”
- Early hit recordings by Tommy Dorsey’s orchestra, Martha Tilton, and Frank Sinatra helped cement it in the Great American Songbook and then in the jazz repertoire.
- It has since been recorded hundreds of times by major jazz artists, including Sinatra, Bud Powell, Hank Mobley, Thelonious Monk, and Bill Evans.
Form and key centers
- Standard 32–bar ABAC (or A1–B–A2–C) form, each section 8 bars long.
- Commonly played in concert C, B♭, A♭, and A; different singers and instrumentalists have favored different home keys.
- The tune stays mostly diatonic to the home key but briefly tonicizes related areas like the relative minor and the IV major, which gives you clear examples of temporary key centers.
