This Is Your Song

"And you can tell everybody
This is your song
It may be quite simple but
Now that it's done
I hope you don't mind,
I hope you don't mind
That I put down in words
How wonderful life is
While you're in the world"

— Elton John, "Your Song"

So you need to get a gift for the girl of your dreams. Or maybe you've liked her for a really long time, and you need to show her how you feel. Or you screwed up big time and need to apologize. Either way, you've hit on the perfect solution - sing to her! Either with an existing song (if the producers can get the rights to it) or something you've written yourself.

This almost never actually goes well. Often the performer ends up being a terrible musician, or sometimes the song goes completely over the head of its intended recipients.

Love songs from musicals don't count unless it's obvious to the other characters that someone is singing.

"Your Song" by Elton John is the Trope Namer. Can overlap with This Is a Song (if the singer explicitly references the fact that the song is for the recipient, in-song) and Gift of Song if said song is designed to be a present.

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Examples

Comics

• Scott Pilgrim writes one for Ramona in volume 2.
  "Yeah, it goes like this... RAMONA RAMONA RAMONA RAMONA RAMONA RAMONA RAMONA! Then there's this breakdown, which is kind of like... dun DUN daahh-nnnnininini! And then the second verse goes, RAMONA WICKED RAMONA RAMONA RAMONA OOOOOOOHHH RAMONA! It's kind of an epic."

Film

• Moulin Rouge! - sort of another Trope Namer.
• This happens in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, with the Intercourse with You song "Inside of You," complete with, ah, suggestive dance sequence.
• The Wedding Singer, both the movie and the stage musical have Robbie write "Grow Old With You" and sing it to Julia. It wins her over.
• A variation in The Simpsons Movie; a boy writes a song for Lisa, but since they were seperated behind the glass dome, he writes the notation on the glass.
• Subverted in Animal House. A man serenades a group of young ladies with his guitar. They seem to be enjoying it, but Bluto is not impressed.
• Scott Pilgrim vs. The World uses this as well, although the song is somewhat different from the one in the comics. (The lyrics are still mostly "Ramona" over and over again, though.) When he realizes he truly does love Ramona and goes to save her from Gideon, it plays again... but this time with real lyrics and being sung by Beck.
• Not Another Teen Movie spoofs this, when Jack thinks about wooing Janey with a song. So he picks... "Janie's Got a Gun" by Aerosmith and starts singing it out loud, sending everyone in a frenzy, thinking Janey is a school shooter.
• In Dan in Real Life, Dan's brother Mitch tries to do this to his girlfriend, with Dan accompanying on guitar. But he forgets the words and Dan takes over. Considering Dan and Mitch's girlfriend have feelings for each other, it's very awkward.
• In Ted, Mark Wahlberg is trying to get his girlfriend back his irresponsibility pushed her away. He learns that she is gonna be at a Norah Jones concert that night. Turns out his best friend, magical living teddy bear Ted (It Makes Sense in Context) is an old friend-with-benefits of Norah Jones, and he gets Mark Wahlberg on stage to during the concert to sing a song. Unfortunately, not only is he an horrible singer, he picks up the worst James Bond theme song ever, "All Time High" from Octopussy.
• In Music and Lyrics, Alex writes one for Sophie, performed at the Concert Climax. Especially meaningful as she is his lyricists, as he insists that he is terrible at writing lyrics.
• Inversion: Petula Clark's "This Is My Song," from Charles Chaplin's film A Countess In Hong Kong.
• In Vivo, Andrés puts his feelings for Marta into song, but then doesn't give it to her when she wants to pursue a career in the U.S. Most of the film revolves around the effort to finally deliver it.

Literature

• In The Princess Diaries (the book) Michael writes a song for Mia. Later he performs it to her. When they are alone. In his room. And what happens? He doesn't tell her it was meant for her, and she doesn't understand it.

Live Action TV

• Nick writing "Lady L" for Lindsey in Freaks and Geeks.
• Deconstructed in the Glee episode "Ballad". Played straighter when Ryder sings to "Katie."
• Ted's Stepfather's incredibly lewd song for his mother in How I Met Your Mother.
• On Cheers Woody didn't know what he could get Kelly (his Uptown Girl girlfriend) for her birthday. Frasier suggests something "from the heart," so he wrote her a song. He sang it for her at her party.
  Kelly: Woody, that was beautiful.
  Woody: You really liked it?
  Kelly: Oh, I liked it more than anything.
  Woody: Thanks.
  Kelly: So... where's my gift?
• Kelso tries to do this to impress Jackie in That '70s Show but is sabotaged by Hyde when Hyde tells her that Kelso is ripping off American Pie.
• The Victorious episode "The Birthweek Song" features a variant, with Tori writing a song for her sister Trina in celebration of her "birthweek". Unfortunately, Trina, being the kind of Spoiled Brat who thinks that she's entitled to a whole week to celebrate her birth, also believes that something doesn't count as a present unless it costs money, prompting a similar exchange to the Cheers example above.

Music

• Elton John's "Your Song", which is the Trope Namer.
• "It Goes Like This" by Thomas Rhett:
  Hey girl, you make me wanna write a song
  Sit you down, I'll sing it to you all night long
  I've had a melody in my head
  Since she walked in here and knocked me dead
  Yeah girl, you make me wanna write a song
  And it goes like ooh, what I wouldn't do
  To write my name on your heart, get you wrapped in my arms
  Baby all around you
  And it goes like hey girl, I'm blown away
  Yeah, it starts with a smile and it ends with an all night long slow kiss
  Yeah, it goes like this
• "Amy's Song" by Brent Anderson. The narrator meets a girl named Amy at a club where he's performing, so he covers "Amie" by Pure Prairie League as his last song of the show and dedicates it to her. This leads to a Relationship Revolving Door, and even when they're broken up he ends shows with "Amie", dedicated to her, just in case she's there.
• Played with by "This Ain't No Love Song" by Trace Adkins, in which the narrator patently denies he has a crush and is singing about her.

Theatre

• Throughout RENT, Roger tries to write "his song." Near the end, he finally composes "Your Eyes" for Mimi.
• The Ginny/Cho Chang song from A Very Potter Musical. The joke is that the song is for Cho, but Harry practices on Ginny. It obviously works better using Ginny's name, because all the lyrics rhyme with her name, and not Cho's.

Western Animation

• Done on The Simpsons over and over again:
  • Homer's country singer protege Lurleen Lumpkin sings him an original song, "Bunk with Me Tonight," all the while making eyes at him. Homer being Homer, of course, it takes her reprising the chorus, with even more blatant eye-making, for him to get what she's on about.
  • When Homer and Marge appear on a Wife Swap-type show, Marge's temporary husband falls for her and sings her a (very bad) song he wrote for her (which puns on Marge's hair "dye," Princess "Di," and the latter's "dying." Yeah.).
  • Siblings rather than romance, but there's also Bart's song "Lisa it's your Birthday," written & performed with assistance by Michael Jackson Leon Kompowski.
  • Homer: What if I sing to you? ''I gave my love a chicken, it had no bones''... Mmmmmm... chicken.
  • "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Homer and Marge." Out of the ordinary in that it was Marge who "played" the song for Homer.
  • When Seymour Skinner was trying to win back Mrs. Krabappel, he enlisted the help of Springfield Elementary's glee club, to the tune of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight."
    Castrati: Oh Edna K.
    Oh Edna K.
    Oh Edna K.
    Oh Edna K.
    Oh Edna K.
    Oh Edna K.
    Oh Edna K.
    Oh Edna K.
• Parodied, like everything else, by Stewie on Family Guy regarding Joe and Bonnie's replacement child.
• Prince Lir writes "That's All I've Got To Say" for Lady Amalthea in The Last Unicorn.

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