"Blue Melody" is a short story by J. D. Salinger, first published in the September 1948 issue of Cosmopolitan. The tragic tale of an African-American jazz singer, the story was inspired by the life of Bessie Smith and was originally titled "Scratchy Needle on a Phonograph Record." Cosmopolitan changed the title to "Blue Melody" without Salinger's consent, a "slick" magazine tactic that was one of the reasons the author decided, in the late forties, that "he wanted to publish only in The New Yorker."
Famous quotes containing the words blue and/or melody:
“Down the blue night the unending columns press
In noiseless tumult, break and wave and flow,”
—Rupert Brooke (1887–1915)
“The song is ended, but the melody lingers on.”
—Irving Berlin (1888–1989)