Opus One

Words & Music by Sy Oliver & Sid Garris
Recorded by The Mills Brothers, 1944


     D          D6       D           D6
I'm wrackin' my brain to think of a name

   Dm+7         Dm6     Dm+7      Dm6
To give to this tune so Perry can croon;

    Em7/9     A7        Em7        A7
And maybe ol' Bing will give it a fling,

    D             Fdim     Em7         A7
And that'll start everyone hummin' the thing.


    D         D6       D         D6
The melody's dumb — repeat and repeat —

    Dm+7       Dm6        Dm+7        Dm6
But if you can swing, it's got a good beat,

    Em7/9           A7        Em7           A7
And that's the main thing, to make with the feet,

       D           G         D
'Cause ev'ryone's swingin' today.


Bridge:

            F      Gm
So I call it Opus One — 

     Bb       C7    F    Dm   Bb   C7
It's not for Sammy Kaye, hey, hey, hey.

 G               D7              G     Gdim
Opus One...it's got to swing not sway, maybe.


   D           D6         D         D6
If Mister Les Brown could make it renowned,

    Dm+7     Dm6       Dm+7        Dm6
And Ray Anthony could swing it for me,

        Em7/9   A7           Em7            A7
There's never a doubt you'll knock yourself out

    Em7          A7        D6
Whenever you can hear Opus One.

The lyric and guitar chord transcriptions on this site are the work of The Guitarguy and are intended for private study, research, or educational purposes only. Individual transcriptions are inspired by and and based upon the recorded versions cited, but are not necessarily exact replications of those recorded versions.