"Someday I'll Find You" (sometimes printed as "Some Day I'll Find You") is a song with words and music by
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 189926 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what ''Time (magazine), Time'' called "a sense of personal style, a combination of c ...
. It was introduced by
Gertrude Lawrence
Gertrude Lawrence (4 July 1898 – 6 September 1952) was an English actress, singer, dancer and musical comedy performer known for her stage appearances in the West End of London and on Broadway in New York.
Early life
Lawrence was born in 1 ...
and Coward in his 1930 play ''
Private Lives
''Private Lives'' is a 1930 comedy of manners in three acts by Noël Coward. It concerns a divorced couple who, while honeymooning with their new spouses, discover that they are staying in adjacent rooms at the same hotel. Despite a perpetuall ...
''.
The song has been recorded by various singers and was later used as the theme for the radio drama ''
Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons''.
Description
It is played repeatedly by the hotel orchestra in the play, before being sung by the character Amanda and subsequently reprised in Act 2 by Elyot and Amanda.
The song is a waltz and is written in the key of
E-flat major
E-flat major is a major scale based on E, consisting of the pitches E, F, G, A, B, C, and D. Its key signature has three flats. Its relative minor is C minor, and its parallel minor is E minor, (or enharmonically D minor).
The E-fla ...
.
Coward wrote of the song:
In his 1992 book ''Noel and Cole'',
Stephen Citron describes the song as encapsulating the whole theme of the play of ''Private Lives''.
The musicologists Marvin E. Paymer and Don Post describe "Someday I'll Find You" as "broadly romantic and unabashedly sentimental" and argue that the development of the melody of the song is impressive, particularly as Coward could neither read nor write music.
The singer
Ian Bostridge has commented, "Elyot (played by Coward himself in the first production) famously scorns the song as a 'nasty insistent little tune'; but it is Amanda who has the measure of its power and its importance in the drama they are playing out: 'Extraordinary how potent cheap music is'".
"Someday I'll Find You" was the theme for the radio drama ''
Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons'', which ran from 1937 to 1955 on
NBC Blue and
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...
.
Recordings
Between the pre-London tour of ''Private Lives'' and the
West End premiere on 24 September 1930, Coward and Lawrence made studio recordings of scenes from Acts 1 and 2 of the play for
the Gramophone Company
The Gramophone Company Limited was a British phonograph manufacturer and record label, founded in April 1898 by Emil Berliner. It was one of the earliest record labels.
The company purchased the His Master's Voice painting and trademark righ ...
, recorded at the
Queen's Hall
The Queen's Hall was a concert hall in Langham Place, London, Langham Place, London, opened in 1893. Designed by the architect Thomas Knightley, it had room for an audience of about 2,500 people. It became London's principal concert venue. Fro ...
(upstairs in the Small Queen's Hall), London, on 15 September and released on the
His Master's Voice
His Master's Voice is an entertainment trademark featuring a dog named Nipper, curiously peering into the horn of a wind-up gramophone. Painted by Francis Barraud in 1898, the image has since become a global symbol used across consumer elect ...
label with the catalogue number C 2043.
Ray Noble
Raymond Stanley Noble (17 December 1903 – 3 April 1978) was an English jazz and big band musician, who was a bandleader, composer and arranger, as well as a radio host, television and film comedian and actor; he also performed in the United S ...
and his orchestra provided the musical accompaniment for "Someday I'll Find You".
Lawrence made a second recording of the song, released on
Decca
Decca may refer to:
Music
* Decca Records or Decca Music Group, record label
* Decca Gold, classical music record label owned by Universal Music Group
* Decca Broadway, musical theater record label
* Decca Studios, recording facility in West ...
DL 5418 in 1952. The orchestra was conducted by
Jay Blackton.
Coward made a studio recording of the song for the
Philips
Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), simply branded Philips, is a Dutch multinational health technology company that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, its world headquarters have been situated in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarter ...
label, with orchestral accompaniment conducted by
Wally Stott
Angela Morley (10 March 192414 January 2009) was an English composer and conductor who became familiar to BBC Radio listeners in the 1950s under the name of Wally Stott. Morley provided incidental music for ''The Goon Show'' and ''Hancock's ...
, released with the catalogue number 8028. The following year his live cabaret performance of the song in the opening medley was included on the
Columbia record ''Noël Coward at Las Vegas'', ML 5063.
Carlton Hayes and his orchestra provided the accompaniment.
Others who have recorded the song include
Hilde Gueden,
Mario Lanza
Mario Lanza ( , ; born Alfredo Arnold Cocozza ; January 31, 1921 – October 7, 1959) was an American tenor and actor. He was a Hollywood film star popular in the late 1940s and the 1950s. Lanza began studying to be a professional singer a ...
,
Doris Day
Doris Day (born Doris Mary Kappelhoff; April 3, 1922 – May 13, 2019) was an American actress and singer. She began her career as a big band singer in 1937, achieving commercial success in 1945 with two No. 1 recordings, "Sentimental Journey ...
,
Bobby Short
Robert Waltrip Short (September 15, 1924 – March 21, 2005) was an American cabaret singer and pianist who interpreted songs by popular composers from the first half of the 20th century such as Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Harold ...
,
Patricia Routledge
Dame Katherine Patricia Routledge ( ; born 17 February 1929) is an English actress and singer, best known for her comedy role as Hyacinth Bucket in the popular BBC sitcom ''Keeping Up Appearances'' (1990–1995), for which she was nominated for ...
,
Perry Como
Pierino Ronald "Perry" Como (; May 18, 1912 – May 12, 2001) was an American singer, actor, and television personality. During a career spanning more than half a century, he recorded exclusively for RCA Victor for 44 years, from 1943 until 1987 ...
,
Julie Andrews
Dame Julie Andrews (born Julia Elizabeth Wells; 1 October 1935) is an English actress, singer, and author. She has garnered numerous accolades throughout her career spanning over eight decades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Fi ...
and
Ian Bostridge.
"Someday I'll Find You"
Internet Archive. Retrieved 17 April 2025
Notes
References
{{Noël Coward musicals
1930 songs
Compositions in E-flat major
Songs written by Noël Coward