Day In, Day Out is a popular 1939 jazz standard with music by Rube Bloom and lyrics by Johnny Mercer. The lyric uses exotic imagery to contrast with the plain phrase day in - day out, expressing longing beyond a dull routine, a contrast noted by critic Alec Wilder who praised its soaring 56-measure melody. The original release was by Helen Ward with Bob Crosby and his Orchestra in 1939, which reached the Billboard charts, and it was also recorded by Helen Forrest with Artie Shaw the same year. Since then the tune has been covered by many artists across decades, including Horace Silver, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Garland, Diana Krall, and Bob Dylan. It is treated as a jazz and pop standard and has appeared on numerous artists’ albums, such as Sinatra’s Come Dance with Me! and Nice n Easy, as well as Fitzgerald’s Johnny Mercer Songbook. The song remains a staple of the Great American Songbook with enduring emotional intensity and broad appeal.
