Free Jazz Standard Sheet Music Downloads

"Dancing on the Ceiling" is a 1930 standard with music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Lorenz Hart. Originally written for the musical Simple Simon, it was cut before the premiere and instead introduced by Jessie Matthews in the London musical Ever Green.

The tune follows a 32-bar AABA form, featuring a graceful, romantically buoyant melody characteristic of Rodgers's gift for elegant songwriting. Hart's lyric paints a whimsical fantasy of a lover dancing overhead—imagery that proved controversial at the time. Censors in both England and the United States banned the song from radio broadcasts, interpreting the lines about "underneath my counterpane" as too risqué. Musically, the song is most often performed as a ballad, with gentle harmonic motion and a lyrical quality that invites intimate, expressive interpretation from both vocalists and instrumentalists.

Frank Sinatra delivered a celebrated interpretation on his landmark 1955 album In the Wee Small Hours, setting the standard for its jazz ballad treatment. Ella Fitzgerald included the song in her Rodgers and Hart songbook recordings, while Chet Baker offered a characteristically understated reading. The song also appeared in the 1934 film adaptation of Evergreen, again performed by Jessie Matthews, helping to secure its place in the Great American Songbook.