He’s My Secret Passion 1930
Vocals: Smith Ballew
Band: Danny Yates and His Orchestra
Songwriting: Valentine / Young
I’m at my window each morning at eight
My day begins when he passes the gate
He doesn’t know it, but someday he will
He’s my secret passion
I gaze for hours at the house where he lives
You can’t imagine the thrill that it gives
I know I show it, but that’s how I feel
He’s my secret passion
I’m trying to find among my friends
One who knows him too
I’ll be introduced to him by friends
If it’s the last thing that I do
And at the café where he dines at nine
I sit and wish that the cooking were mine
He doesn’t know it, but someday he will
He’s my secret passion
I’m at my window each morning at eight
My day begins when he passes the gate
He doesn’t know it, but someday he will
For he’s my secret passion
I gaze for hours at the house where he lives
You can’t imagine the thrill that it gives
I know I show it, but that’s how I feel
For he’s my secret passion
From Changing Their Tunes exhibit:
“He’s My Secret passion” was originally featured in a British crime drama, and tells the story of a woman harbouring intense feeling for a man who is unaware of the narrator’s obsession. Smith Ballew’s vocals sing the melody in a sincere and intimate style indicative of crooners of the early 1930s. As he recites the lyrics about a secret love, it is easy to imagine that he is expressing he’s deepest feelings for another man.
Other male vocalists at the time did not sing the song this way, performing a version in which “he” was changed to “she”. Indeed, 1930 copies of the sheet music include a section plainly titled ‘She’s My Secret Passion (Male Version)’, revealing the publisher’s understanding that the lyrics were gendered. (Along with pronoun swaps, the alternate version interestingly changes the location in the last stanza from a café to a train.)