My Foolish Heart is a 1949 jazz ballad - a popular song and standard - with music by Victor Young and lyrics by Ned Washington. It was written for the 1949 film My Foolish Heart and introduced by Martha Mears; though the film received mixed reviews, the song was a hit and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song that year. The first recording was Gordon Jenkins and His Orchestra in late 1949, with a December 1949 release, and in the UK sheet music topped the charts for 11 weeks in 1950. The tune sold well in 1950 with Billy Eckstine’s million-selling version and other early covers by Mindy Carson, Margaret Whiting, Richard Hayes, and Hugo Winterhalter. Notable later versions include Roberta Flack on Set the Night to Music (1991), Kurt Elling on This Time It’s Love (1998), and the Tony Bennett and Bill Evans album from 1975; the song remains a staple in jazz repertoires and appears in many Real Books and vocal albums.
