"I've Told Ev'ry Little Star" is a song by Jerome Kern, with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. It was introduced in the 1932 Broadway musical Music in the Air, where it is central to the plot: a music teacher and a schoolmaster in a small Bavarian town write it, and the villagers then take it to Munich to find a publisher. Kern said that a bird singing outside his bedroom window inspired the melody.
The first hit recording was made on 11 November 1932 by Jack Denny and His Waldorf-Astoria Orchestra, with a vocal by Paul Small, for Victor. Bing Crosby recorded it in 1945, the year in which, on 11 November, Hammerstein sang it into the ear of the dying Kern. The best-known version is Linda Scott's 1961 teen-pop single, which reached No. 3 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and No. 7 in the UK and Canada. Gitte Hænning's Danish version of 1961 reached No. 1 in Denmark. Other recordings include those by Mario Lanza, Dorothy Kirsten, Percy Faith, Cannonball Adderley, Sonny Rollins and Brad Mehldau. The song is a popular standard in the traditional pop idiom.
