Too Late Now

Words & Music by Alan Jay Lerner & Burton Lane, 1951
Recorded by The DeCastro Sisters, 1955


 D9      F#m       G         A
Too late now to forget your smile,

    D9      F#m              Em7       A
The way we cling when we've danced a while,

 D9      F#m      E7/9 E7 G/B A7 Em7 D     Bm7 Em7   A7
Too late now to forget and go on to some - one new.


D9       F#m       G         A
Too late now to forget your voice,

    D9      F#m            Em7     A
The way one word makes my heart rejoice,

D9       F#m        E7/9  E7 G/B    A7 Em7  A7  Edim  D
Too late now to i - mag - ine my - self a - way from you.


Bridge:

D   D9   F#7         Edim       F#7   Bm
All the things we've done to - geth - er,

Em7  A7       Edim    Bm
I relive when we're apart;

Bm7/E    E7    G/B Am7 E7    D9   AM7
 All the ten - der fun to - geth - er

 D9  Cdim Bm7-5 E    A      A7 
Stays on   in   my heart.


D9       F#m       G         A
How could I ever close the door

    D9      F#m      Em7    A
And be the same as I was before,

D9       F#m      E7/9  E7   G/B  A7     Em7  A7 Edim   D
Darling, no, no I can't an - y - more -- it's too late now.


*Requested by recent visitor Edwin Arita.

This song, in its several recorded versions, is one of the best examples I've seen of how an individual pop standard song can take on a variety of lives depending on how a performer chooses to present it. The DeCastro Sisters version I used as a basis for this chart is nearly on the extreme end of "swing" styling; it contrasts dramatically with the bluesy-jazzy versions recorded by such performers as Shirley Horne and Jane Monheit, both of which were performed at somewhere between half and two-thirds the tempo of The DeCastro Sisters' recording.



 
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.