#078
Night & Day
Night and day, you are the one
Only you beneath the moon, under the sun
Whether near to me or far
It’s no matter darling, where you are
I think of you night and day
Cole Porter – Night and Day
Esta canção é talvez a mais importante contribuição de Cole Porter para aquilo que se convencionou chamar de Great American Songbook. No entanto reza a lenda que quando Porter a tocou pela primeira vez ao seu amigo Monty Wooly, este comentou: “I don’t know what this is you are trying to do, but whatever it is, throw it away. It’s terrible”.
Escrito para o musical de 1932 Gay Divorce, o ultimo espetáculo da Broadway com Fred Astaire, já em fase de virar o seu desempenho mais para o grande écran. A 13 de Janeiro do ano seguinte a Victor Records editava a gravação com a orquestra de Leo Reisman e que iria tornar-se o maior sucesso desse ano, um ano muito especial na história do século XX e que um dia terá mesmo direito a uma m4we inteiramente dedicada a esse ano de 1933.
Nos primeiros oito compassos da música, apenas uma nota é tocada, implacável, repetida 35 vezes. Com grande efeito, afirmou o cantor e pianista Steve Ross. “There is a slight maddening quality to these repeated notes I think that sets you up for the obsession that is in the song”. Várias explicações existem para a génese musical e todas elas são estranhas: uma diz que Porter teria sido inspirado pelas preces islâmicas numa visita a Marrocos, em Cleveland Heights, no Ohio, gostariam de pensar ser a construção “moira” do Hotel Alcazar. Há também quem jure a pés juntos que afinal a fonte de inspiração para este clássico são os mosaicos no mausoléu de Galla Placida em Ravenna.
Seja como for esta canção foi o ponto de partida da selecção desta semana, criando um discurso extra-binário sobre o dia e a noite e tudo o que vem in between, o sonho e o chá das 5, do espreguiçar matinal ao lavar dos dentes mesmo antes da caminha…
Contem, claro, pelo menos uma das cinco versões que Sinatra gravou do tema, tendo a minha escolha recaído na versão de 1962 que é magistral, um pouco mais lenta mas possuidora de um cool que só pode advir da idade e da experiencia.
Depois vai mesmo sendo tudo similar com “ver os dias a passar”, a noite sucede ao dia, numa luz que nos ilumina depois do breu nocturno, as manhãs dão para à tarde seguindo para mais um pôr do sol que por si puxa a lua para o firmamento. And so on…
Só para exemplificar: Norma Tanega de quem escolhi A Street That Rhymes at 6 A.M., gravado no seu primeiro LP datado de 1966, Walkin’ My Cat Named Dog, fruto da admiração pela parte de Herb Bernstein, produtor dos The Happenings e de Laura Nyro, que a ouviu num summer camp nas Catskills. Os elogios foram parar aos ouvidos de Bob Crewe, que requisitou-a para a sua editora, New Voice Records, onde também gravavam Mitch Ryder e os Detroit Wheels. E, pelos vistos, o publico estava pronto para as peculiares composições de Tanega, as estranhas e alternativas afinações das suas guitarras e os compassos “coxos” que não eram território da pop. A compositora californiana mudar-se-ia para o Reino Unido, onde começou a escrever para outros artistas, entre os quais Tom Springfield e também a sua irmã, Dusty, com quem desenvolveu uma relação amorosa. Mais nenhum disco de Tanega provou o gosto da fama mas a sua carreira continuou, a canção You’re Dead é o theme tune da série What We Do in the Shadows, o seu primeiro disco teve direito a uma re-edição remasterizada o ano passado enquanto que já este viu o lançamento de I’m The Sky: Studio And Demo Recordings, 1964–1971, uma compilação da Anthology Recordings que assim reacende a vela do interesse nesta obscura artista.
Ou Late In The Afternoon, extraído de Love And Its Opposite, terceiro album de Tracey Thorn pós-Everything But The Girl. Na altura da sua edição em 2010 Thorn afirmou que este disco produzido por Ewan Pearson, era como “a record about the person I am now and the people around me … about real life after forty”. Ou o clássico I Love The Nightlife (Disco Round), talvez o único grande sucesso da cantora Alicia Bridges, nascida em 1953 na Carolina do Norte. Mas que sucesso. E quanto eu dancei esse multiplo disco de ouro quando saiu em 1978.
Começo com os Alabama 3 acompanhados pelo Street Angels Choir N.Y.C. com Woke Up This Morning reconhecida mundialmente como tema da famosa série The Sopranos, mas que já existia antes do show. A música foi editada no álbum de estreia do Alabama 3, Exile on Coldharbour Lane em 1997, permanecendo em relativa obscuridade até David Chase criador da série, decidir usá-la na estreia em 1999. Chase originalmente queria usar uma música diferente para cada episódio mas a HBO insistiu em branding e consistência. Os A3 (nome adoptado por esta banda de rave kids de Brixton nos EUA por causa de uma queixa da banda Alabama e os nomes Bama 3 e Alabaman 3 serem recusados) receberam 40 mil dólares pelo uso da canção, uma oferta que eles não podiam mesmo recusar.
Nur manchmal
Wenn die Sonne hinter den Dächern versinkt
Bin ich mit meiner Sehnsucht allein
Wenn die Kühle in meine Einsamkeit dringt
Kommen ins Zimmer Schatten herein
Sie starren mich an
Und bleiben ganz stumm
Da warte ich dann
Und weiß nicht warum
Auf ein Wunder, das mir Licht ins Dunkel bringt
Wenn die Sonne hinter den Dächern versinkt
Bin ich mit meiner Sehnsucht allein
Pola Negri – Wenn die Sonne hinter den Dächern versinkt
Acabo com There’s Nothing That Says I Cannot Dream, do album Fairfax que Nate Scheible havia editado em 2017 e que recentemente teve direito a edição em vinil remasterizada por Lawrence English. Desde miúdo que Scheible tem uma mania de encontrar e coleccionar fitas e cassetes, a maior parte de atendedores de chamada (esse all mod con caído em desuso), “49 times out of 50, it’s garbage”, diz ele das suas descobertas “There’s one with these people reciting ‘Mary Had A Little Lamb’, and they keep stumbling over it. It sounds like they’re on drugs, on something, but I don’t understand what’s happening. That one’s superintriguing to me. There’s another: in the 1980s there used to be a roadside diner called Dutch Pantry, and it’s this husband and wife, they spend like a half-hour giving a review of this restaurant, everything down to the server, the bathrooms. It’s so bizarre”.
Mas a cassete que usou para compor Fairfax tinha um simples rótulo, ME, eu, nuns contornos Eno-style de apropriação voyeurística (imagine-se My Life in Bush of Ghosts mas sem batidas africanas) que ainda é mais ajudada pela estranha intimidade dos instrumentos usados, vibrafone e eufónio, por exemplo. “I’m guessing she’s probably in her 40s… maybe lower-middle-class, because she definitely seems to be struggling financially a little bit. It seems like she has a history of addiction and is currently in treatment, maybe, at least going to AA meetings”. Acabamos o album sabendo tanto desta mulher, aqui tão exposta, quanto sabíamos na primeira faixa, sem sabermos quem ela é, o que lhe aconteceu, se o destinatário daquela gravação alguma vez a ouviu ou como é que raio foi tal coisa parar a uma thrift store…
#staysafe #musicfortheweekend
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Night and day, you are the one
Only you beneath the moon, under the sun
Whether near to me or far
It’s no matter darling, where you are
I think of you night and day
Cole Porter – Night and Day
This song is perhaps Cole Porter’s most important contribution to what has become known as the Great American Songbook. However, legend has it that when Porter first played it to his friend Monty Wooly, he commented: “I don’t know what this is you are trying to do, but whatever it is, throw it away. It’s terrible”.
Written for the 1932 musical Gay Divorce, the last Broadway show with Fred Astaire, already in the process of turning all his performance towards the big screen. On the 13th of January of the following year, Victor Records put out the recording with Leo Reisman’s orchestra and which would become the biggest hit of that year, a very special year in the history of the 20th century and which one day will even have the right to a m4we entirely dedicated to1933.
In the first eight bars of the song, only one note is played, relentless, repeated 35 times. With great effect, said singer and pianist Steve Ross. “There is a slight maddening quality to these repeated notes I think that sets you up for the obsession that is in the song”. Several explanations exist for the musical genesis and all of them are strange: one says that Porter was inspired by Islamic prayer on a visit to Morocco, in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, they would like to think it was the “moorish” construction of the Hotel Alcazar. And some people will even declare that Porter found his muse by the mosaic of the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia in Ravenna
In any case, this song was the starting point of this week’s selection, creating an extra-binary discourse about day and night and everything that comes in between, the dream and the 5 o’clock tea, from stretching in the morning to brushing your teeth just before bedtime.
It contains, of course, at least one of the five versions that Sinatra recorded of the tune, with my choice falling on the 1962 version which is masterful, a little slower but possessing a certain cool that can only come from age and experience.
Afterwards, everything becomes similar to “watching the days go by”, the night follows the day, in a light that illuminates us after the dark, the mornings lead to the afternoon followed by another sunset that in itself pulls the moon into the firmament up above. And so on…
Just to exemplify: Norma Tanega from whom I chose A Street That Rhymes at 6 A.M., recorded on her first LP dated from 1966, Walkin’ My Cat Named Dog, and the result of much admiration on the part of Herb Bernstein, producer of The Happenings and Laura Nyro, who heard it at a summer camp in the Catskills. The praise reached Bob Crewe, who requested her to his label, New Voice Records, where Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels also recorded. And, apparently, the audience was ready for Tanega’s quirky compositions, the strange and alternate tunings of her guitars and the “limp” bars that aren’t at all part of the pop territory. The Californian songwriter would move to the UK, where she began writing for other artists, including Tom Springfield and her sister Dusty, with whom she developed a romantic relationship. No other album by Tanega proved the taste of fame but her career continued, the song You’re Dead is the theme tune of the series What We Do in the Shadows, her first album was entitled to a remastered re-edition in 2021 while this year has already seen the release of I’m The Sky: Studio And Demo Recordings, 1964–1971, an Anthology Recordings compilation thus reigniting interest in such obscure artist.
Or Late In The Afternoon, taken from Love And Its Opposite, Tracey Thorn’s third post-Everything But The Girl album. At the time of its release in 2010, Thorn stated that this album, produced by Ewan Pearson, was like “a record about the person I am now and the people around me … about real life after forty”. Or the classic I Love The Nightlife (Disco Round), perhaps the only big hit by singer Alicia Bridges, born in 1953 in North Carolina. But what a success. And how much I danced to that multiple gold record when it came out in 1978.
I start with the Alabama 3 accompanied by the Street Angels Choir N.Y.C. with Woke Up This Morning recognized worldwide as the theme of famous tv series The Sopranos, but which already existed before the show. The song was published on Alabama 3’s debut album Exile on Coldharbour Lane in 1997, remaining in relative obscurity until series creator David Chase decided to use it for the 1999 premiere. Chase originally wanted to use a different song for each episode but HBO insisted on branding and consistency. A3 (the name adopted by this rave kids band from Brixton in the USA because of a complaint from the band Alabama and because the names Bama 3 and Alabaman 3 were refused) received $40,000 for the use of the song, an offer they couldn’t refuse.
Nur manchmal
Wenn die Sonne hinter den Dächern versinkt
Bin ich mit meiner Sehnsucht allein
Wenn die Kühle in meine Einsamkeit dringt
Kommen ins Zimmer Schatten herein
Sie starren mich an
Und bleiben ganz stumm
Da warte ich dann
Und weiß nicht warum
Auf ein Wunder, das mir Licht ins Dunkel bringt
Wenn die Sonne hinter den Dächern versinkt
Bin ich mit meiner Sehnsucht allein
Pola Negri – Wenn die Sonne hinter den Dächern versinkt
I finish with There’s Nothing That Says I Cannot Dream, from the album Fairfax that Nate Scheible put out in 2017 but recently remastered on vinyl by Lawrence English. Since childhood, Scheible has had a thing for finding and collecting tapes and cassettes, mostly from answering machines (one more all mod con fallen into disuse), “49 times out of 50, it’s garbage”, he says of his discoveries “There’s one with these people reciting ‘Mary Had A Little Lamb’, and they keep stumbling over it. It sounds like they’re on drugs, on something, but I don’t understand what’s happening. That one’s super intriguing to me. There’s another: in the 1980s there used to be a roadside diner called Dutch Pantry, and it’s this husband and wife, they spend like a half-hour giving a review of this restaurant, everything down to the server, the bathrooms. It’s so bizarre.”
But the cassette he used to compose Fairfax had a simple label, ME, in an Eno-style contours of voyeuristic appropriation (imagine My Life in Bush of Ghosts but without African beats) that is further aided by the strange intimacy of the instruments used, vibraphone and euphonium for example. “I’m guessing she’s probably in her 40s… maybe lower-middle-class, because she definitely seems to be struggling financially a little bit. It seems like she has a history of addiction and is currently in treatment, maybe, at least going to AA meetings”. We end the album knowing as much about this woman, so exposed here, as we did on the first track, without knowing who she is, what happened to her, if the recipient of that recording ever heard her or how the hell did such a thing end up in a thrift store…
#staysafe #musicfortheweekend
Alabama 3 & Street Angels Choir N.Y.C. – Woke Up This Morning
2raumwohnung – Das Herz irrt nie (Tag)
Goldie Hawn – Cloudy Summer Afternoon
Les Rita Mitsouko – Un soir un Chien
Norma Tanega – A Street That Rhymes at 6 A.M.
Billie Holiday – Good Morning Heartache
The Beatles – I’m Only Sleeping
Shalamar – A Night to Remember
Soul Saver – Another Day
Tracey Thorn – Late In The Afternoon
Pola Negri – Wenn die Sonne hinter den Dächern versinkt
Frank Sinatra – Night and Day (1962 version)
Blo – It’s Gonna Be A Good Day
Roxy Music – In the Midnight Hour
George Benson – Give Me The Night
LaBelle – Lady Marmalade Voulez Vous Coucher Avec Moi Ce Soir?
Jacqueline Taïeb – Ce soir je m’en vais
10cc – Good Morning Judge
The Kills – Goodnight Bad Morning
Carole King – It’s Too Late
Ilonka Biluska – Nacht
Jáfu’Mega – Uma Noite De Amor
Everly Brothers – All I Have To Do Is Dream
Peppermint Rainbow – Don’t Wake Me Up In The Morning, Michael
The Waterboys – The Girl Who Slept For Scotland
Mathématique Modernes – T.V. Night
The Commodores – Nightshift
Alicia Bridges – I Love The Nightlife (Disco Round)
Sitiados – A Noite
The Gap Band – Early In The Morning
Wham! – Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go
The Police – Bring On The Night
Jenny Luna – Tintarella Di Luna
Armada – Beyond The Morning #2
Melancton – Der Nachtschwarmer
Candi Staton – Nights On Broadway
Heatwave – Boogie Nights
Teresa – Lisboa à Noite
Isabel Campelo – Boa noite, Vitinho!
Nate Scheible – There’s Nothing That Says I Cannot Dream