During this time of year, I always try to learn something new.
This year I have once again approached my guitar, dedicating myself to learn one scale well enough to be able to play Frank Zappa inspired solos atop lydian chord progressions. It’s going well.
I made an apple crumble from scratch yesterday morning before I left for the office. That worked out.
I am still attempting a chin-up and pull-up regimen, though my recent bout of both COVID and Flu A (combined) made that goal much more challenging: my weak arms hoisting my swollen frame like two Slim Jims™ lifting a fully dressed baked potato. Giving it my best, though.
And I am reading more, though I must admit that even the best book is nowhere as clockwork orange distracting as social media. In a book, you know what’s coming next, while my Instagram feed offers constant surprise yet consistent banality - a heady cocktail that is difficult to replace, but necessary to curb in this abrasive age.
So in an effort to limit doomscrolling, I’ve gone a bit off the rails: buying a vintage princess phone on eBay and hooking my iPhone through it so my daughter can pretend it’s the 80’s, stuff like that. I self-replaced the battery on my Apple Watch™ because it had expanded over time and separated the screen from the body - it still works, but I lost the grounding wire, so I have the slightest sense of a polite amount of electrocution on my wrist now.
We’ll have to see how that goes.
I didn’t have my watch for a week. It was harder than I thought - I look at my watch quite a bit as it turns out, and was always a bit disappointed to find only my bare skin. As a result, I ended up holding my phone in my hand a bit more than I usually do, and as I did not want to fall into a content spiral, I turned to music.
COVID offers such a wide variety of post-infection suffering, a Sizzler’s Salad Bar full of brain fog and debilitating aches, to which my body responds through absolute exhaustion and Pythonesque absurdism. Thus I found myself listening to 13 different versions of a single song, “The Shadow of Your Smile”, written in 1964 for the (awful) movie “The Sandpiper” starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton (third of the 11 films they would eventually make together).
Even as a kid I knew the name of the composer, Johnny Mandel, because he wrote the soundtrack to my favorite movie, “Escape From Witch Mountain”, but “Shadow of Your Smile” was his big record, taking home both a Grammy and Oscar while earning Tony Bennett a #50 hit in 1966, not on the “pop” charts, but a fleeting category named “Brazil”.
I have no idea why it popped in my head, but I finally gave in and searched it up in Apple Music on my morning walk to the train.
There were over 50 cover versions to choose from…most of the artists were legends. Mancini. Fitzgerald. Wonder. Como. Davis Jr. – each bringing a new perspective.
I remember when all music was like that: a great song would be on the radio, then you’d see folks on TV covering it on variety shows and music specials. Truly great songs didn’t belong to anyone until someone NAILED a performance, created something ethereal from the work, causing every other artist to just slow clap and back off. “Over The Rainbow”. “Mack the Knife”. “Don’t Rain On My Parade”. Songs where the title brings to mind a specific voice and singer, even though you’ve heard many performances of it.
This song clearly belonged in Tony Bennett’s ledger, but on this day he did not win my spontaneous early morning commute cover version battle.
Tale of the Tape:
Honorable Mentions: Marvin Gaye’s hallucinatory free-form experiment, Shirley Bassey’s ultra-dramatic blues, Boots Randolph’s deep drunken New Year’s Eve tenor sax. Wonderful.
Runner’s up: Frank Sinatra at the Sands - arranged by Quincy Jones - the very definition of lush, even if he forgets the words. Who am I kidding, he’s Frank Sinatra, who needs the words? Whatever he says are “the words” now.
Connie Francis - what? The ESSENCE of the ’60’s. I mean, I’m not a smoker, and this made me want two cigarettes and one dry martini at 8:45 in the morning.
Barbara Streisand is a gift to the world from life itself. Her voice is quite literally perfect. I believe I said “WOW!” out loud, standing on the train, but it’s NY so no one looked up or anything. It is difficult to imagine anything better.
Ella Fitzgerald - rather than a strident statement atop a windy hill, the Queen offers a tear-stained love letter of true longing.
Winner’s Circle:
Two performers reigned supreme. Tuxedo-clad warriors, ever-so-gently holding far-too-thin microphones.
For a while, the top performance belonged to multi-talented (and syllabled) Englebert Humperdinck. I could go on and on about this phenomenon, this humble British songbird who felt his given name, Arnold George Dorsey, was too ordinary to achieve the heights of fame he imagined, and proved his instincts correct by jumping across the Pond and earning his own American TV show (which my mother watched every week). Smooth and dulcet, he ruled this competition – until A Man From Wales arrived, with Destiny by his side.
It was almost unfair.
Tom Jones can sing anything.
Tom Jones could sing your telephone number.
Tom Jones could sing a recipe for chicken alfredo.
And the funny thing is, Tom Jones never recorded “The Shadow of Your Smile”, only performed it on his popular TV variety show, surrounded by candles in front of what I believe is a backgammon board, on which he moves the pieces, wistfully, during the verse where the strings take over. I had to find his version on YouTube.
By the time I got to work, I actually felt better. Something about all that talent, topped off with Pure Welsh Magic, took the edge off my bleary haze and set my day in motion.
Obsessive?
Ok, yeah, maybe (perhaps), but I’m still too COVIDY to figure all that out. I really enjoyed how all one tune united all these artists over fifty years. I think I’ll play this game again and give up doom for Lent this year.
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