Ella Fitzgerald / The Complete Christmas Collection / 1960
What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?
wistful, tender, anxious beneath a light surface
A quietly nervous love song built around a single question, asked with the calendar as its excuse. The narrator uses the approach of a holiday deadline to confess a romantic hope they're too shy to state directly, wrapping vulnerability in the casual language of party planning.
romantic vulnerability unrequited or uncertain love time and deadlines as emotional pressure self-doubt hope disguised as small talk
Who's speaking
A first-person speaker addresses a specific 'you' directly, someone they admire but haven't yet won over. The voice is self-deprecating and uncertain of its own standing, which makes it feel sincere rather than performative — an insecure narrator, not an unreliable one.
What happens
The song moves from a hypothetical future scene (bells, kissing couples) into a present-tense confession of doubt, then circles back to the same repeated question, each time with slightly more anxious justification. There's no resolution — the song ends still waiting for an answer, which is the point.
How it's built
The lyric is built almost entirely around one recurring question that functions as a refrain, bookending verses that supply reasons for the asker's nervousness. There's little narrative development in the conventional sense; instead the song tightens by repetition, restating the question with growing self-awareness of how big an ask it actually is. The final repeat, extended and unresolved, refuses to give the song a tidy ending.
Section by section
Opening verse
The song opens not with the speaker but with a wide shot of a New Year's Eve party in progress — bells, horns, couples kissing. Only after establishing this collective, celebratory backdrop does the speaker insert themselves, wondering aloud whether they'll be part of it or left outside looking in.
First refrain
“much too early in the game”
The speaker undercuts their own question before asking it, hedging with a claim that it's premature. This apology-in-advance is a classic move of someone protecting themselves against rejection while still going through with the ask.
Middle verse
Here the speaker imagines someone else altogether holding the object of their affection at midnight, a small stab of jealousy dressed up as idle curiosity. It's the emotional low point of the song, briefly admitting the fear that prompted the whole question.
Self-doubt verse
The speaker openly states the odds are against them, framing themselves as one option among many rather than a clear favorite. This is the song's most direct acknowledgment of insecurity, though it's delivered lightly enough to stay charming rather than mopey.
Closing refrain
“jackpot question in advance”
Calling the question a jackpot reframes the whole confession as a long-shot bet, and the repetition of the refrain at the end — extended rather than resolved — leaves the listener, like the speaker, without an answer.
Craft
- refrain
- The central question recurs almost verbatim, turning a casual-sounding invitation into an obsessive, circling thought that the speaker can't stop returning to.
- understatement
- Framing a declaration of love as a scheduling question lets the speaker hide real stakes behind a socially safe, low-pressure phrasing.
- gambling metaphor
- Language borrowed from games of chance casts the confession as a bet the speaker expects to lose, reinforcing the theme of self-doubt.
- imagined scene
- The opening description of bells, horns, and kissing couples projects a future moment the speaker isn't yet sure they'll be part of, using anticipation to generate tension.
Reading it
The most straightforward reading is a shy, hopeful confession: someone uses the pretext of holiday plans to find out if they have a chance with someone they love, too nervous to say it outright. A slightly darker alternative reading treats the repeated, increasingly anxious refrain as evidence the speaker already suspects the answer is no, and the song becomes less a hopeful proposal than a quiet acceptance of likely disappointment, softened by wit so it doesn't sting as much aloud.
Context
The song was written by Frank Loesser in 1947, originally as a piece for a private New Year's party rather than for public release, and has since become a standard covered by many artists. Ella Fitzgerald's version appears on her Christmas collection; her delivery leans into warmth and light swing rather than melancholy, which tends to foreground the song's charm over its underlying anxiety. I'm not certain of the specific recording details for this particular Fitzgerald cut beyond its inclusion on the compilation named.
Listen for
- How the phrasing of the refrain shifts slightly in emphasis each time it returns
- The contrast between the buoyant, celebratory imagery of the opening and the quieter, more doubtful tone of the middle verses
- Whether the vocal delivery leans into the jealousy of the 'whose arms' line or glosses past it
- The way the song ends without musical or lyrical resolution, mirroring the unanswered question
- Ella Fitzgerald's use of light rhythmic swing to keep an anxious lyric sounding playful rather than heavy
About Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Jane Fitzgerald was an American jazz vocalist, songwriter and composer, sometimes referred to as the "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella". She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing, timing, intonation, and a "horn-like" improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing.
1917 - 1996 / United States
Full biography and catalogue