My Old Flame is a 1934 jazz standard composed by Arthur Johnston with lyrics by Sam Coslow for the Mae West film Belle of the Nineties. It was introduced in the film as sung by Mae West with the Duke Ellington Orchestra, and six weeks after filming Ellington cut a version with Ivie Anderson released on Commodore 585. The song became a No. 7 hit for Guy Lombardo that year and later re-emerged in the early 1940s in the repertoires of Benny Goodman and Count Basie. Over the years it has become a standard with notable recordings by Billie Holiday, Peggy Lee, Dinah Washington, Helen Humes, Marlena Shaw and instrumental takes by Charlie Parker, Gerry Mulligan with Chet Baker, J. J. Johnson, Sonny Rollins, Stan Kenton, Zoot Sims, and even a 2022 entry by John Scofield. The tune is in G major with an AABA form and a B flat shift in the B section, and its lyrics pair flippant lines with a sense of a lost youthful romance.
