A good song is endlessly mutable. If you only know this one courtesy of Slim Whitman, Eddy Arnold, Kate Smith or, God help you, Foster and Allen, then you might think its sentimental tosh.
Fortunately for Henry Tobias, Larry Vincent and Moe Jaffe (who wrote it back in 1939) Lou Rawls eventually got hold of it. This recording is from a 1965 album called Nobody But Lou with arrangements by the great Benny Carter – recorded a year before Capitol steered Rawls towards recording more R&B flavoured material and he had a huge it with Love Is A Hurtin’ Thing. He would return to jazz and, particularly, the blues on his later recordings but here he is in all his youthful glory.