Good Morning Heartache (01-22-46)

In this brooding jazz number, Billie Holiday settles for an unwelcome companion called heartache after her lover abandons her. Irene Higginbotham, a young pianist and composer who already had tunes from Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, and Nat King Cole to her credit, brought the music to lyricist Ervin Drake, who happened to be nursing a broken heart. "When she played it for me I thought it was one of the most unusual melodies I'd ever heard," he explained in an interview with Gary James. "When I sat down to write it, it came very easily to me. I can tell you there were several years I was in a depressed state because the young woman whom I loved very deeply, slipped out of my life, and married someone else. I wrote in true despondency. When I heard this melody, it meant that to me, and I wrote that lyric rapidly. Really rapidly." Music publisher Dan Fisher was also given a songwriting credit alongside Higginbotham and Drake.

In 1975, Drake reunited with Edith Bein, the girl who broke his heart and inspired this song. They married in 1981 and remained together until Drake's death in 2015. When Gloria Estefan covered the tune for her 2013 album, The Standards, she performed it for the couple live on CBS This Morning.

Drake is also known for writing Frank Sinatra's "It Was A Very Good Year," which was also partly inspired by the lyricist's lovelorn remembrances of Edith.