Love song blog

Charles Aznavour – Désormais

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It’s a pity that this kind of orchestral pop fell out of fashion. Sure, singers still perform with orchestras, but there is something missing. Often they sing covers of hits originally performed in a different genre, making the performance sound like a schmalzier, romanticised version. And nowadays new songs in this style sound the same, as if they were also covers.

Perhaps it’s easier to sound authentic when expressing sadness, but here Aznavour manages splendidly. The strings are booming and swirling, and the horn section blares as if inserting exclamation points between phrases. With these elements the song could easily sound tacky, but to my ear it’s still refreshing. Sadness and despair become a show, a performance, but underneath it all it feels like it is genuine, like the pompousness is just a way to make it more bearable. Wear your heart on your sleeve in such a dramatic fashion that it feels a bit fake, maybe that will ease the pain. And yet it makes it all the more evident. It’s a difficult trick to pull off. I have praised Aznavour’s acting skills before, how he infused the song with emotion in each performance, and here he sells the despair.

The title means “henceforth” or, more simply, “from now on”, and it’s a poetic text about things that won’t be happening anymore, now that the relationship is over. I never realized it before, but this could be a sequel to Brel’s Ne me quitte pas. Brel’s song is intimate and pleading, and the desperation leads to self-sacrifice, willingness to become the “shadow of your shadow, shadow of your hand, shadow of your dog,” if only the lover agreed to stay.

Here the message is different. There is no more pleading, simply all-encompassing sadness that doesn’t let on. In the second verse Aznavour sings “I, who wanted to be your shadow, will be the shadow of myself, my hand separated from your hand,” so that’s the connection to Brel.

In the chorus Aznavour faces what was lost, but the focus is on how the separation is eternal, as the music is at it’s most dramatic when he sings “nevermore” (Jamais plus). The images are simple but fitting in their intimacy. We won’t bite the same fruit, sleep in the same bed, perform the same gesture. And what seems most heartbreaking of all, we won’t feel the same fear of seeing our happiness flee from us. The break-up has been anticipated, but it doesn’t make it less sad. It even feels more tragic because if they’ve both felt the same fear, they’ve tried to hold on to the relationship even while seeing the dark clouds. And then failure and admittance that it was doomed.

Yet, maybe the arrangement suggests strength and defiance. At least compared to Brel’s song which is like all the remaining strength is channelled into the last plea, here the passion of the song shows resilience even while things are looking very dark. Life itself is not over, and while in this song there’s melancholy in the thought that the two people will move on and will be seen with someone else, it feels like a different feeling is around the corner.

It’s not the only time Aznavour expresses this contradictory feeling: the fact that there will be others is simultaneously sad and hopeful. There is no reason to deny that the break-up is sad, and Aznavour often elevates it to describe impermanence as the human condition, full of gentle or dramatic wistfulness, and yet he embraces the idea that he will rise again. Even if there are failures in the future, the drama will continue, new moments of happiness will come. When they go away, we will grieve again, then look up, see another sunrise. Maybe that is what I find especially attractive about these songs, the acceptance of sadness as a part of life, and the ability to go on. There is a time to dwell in what was lost, but as surely as the strings howl and the singer belts “nevermore”, there will be strength to dwell in new moments of happiness.

Frank Sinatra – Polka Dots and Moonbeams

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When I first heard this song as a part of Sinatra’s 10 CD box set I didn’t know it was a jazz standard, nor that it was Sinatra’s first hit, recorded in 1940. But it was clearly a standout track. Quite a few Sinatra’s early records follow the same formula, the orchestra first playing the tune in full, followed by Sinatra’s crooning, the track ending pretty abruptly. No fade-outs back then, and I wonder when they became popular.

I much prefer Sinatra’s soft crooning style to his later songs which often sound like he’s straining much more, some tension always present. Here the vocals are smooth, and the saxophone on the track complements it very nicely to fit the romantic mood.

The story of a couple meeting at a country dance, but there’s some quirkiness to it, with some funny rhymes. I especially like “perplexed one – next one”. And of course the “pug-nosed dream,” implying that the woman in question has a strange feature but he still finds her dreamy. The social judgment is always present, as other dancers look at them askance.

Acknowledging such traits there’s a strange gray area where acceptance and a sense of superiority meet. On the one hand, you can say that it’s genuine love indeed, saying that he acknowledges her pug nose and even considers it endearing, not caring what everyone else things. On the other hand, the very fact that he keeps bringing up that feature sounds like he feels superior for his acceptance, wants to revel in it. Like it is not about the woman after all, but about the narrator’s need to feel great about himself, his admiration of something that others scoff at. It’s not a self-evident interpretation, but it’s not that far-fetched either, so that’s why I call it a gray area. Acceptance is fine, but when one starts to take such pride in the acceptance it’s not about the other person at all.

I liked playing this song in my early 20s, and looking at the sheet music now I notice that the tune has some really nice tensions in how the phrases avoid the tonic. Each phrase ends with 7th, flat 7th, 9th or 6th note of the scale, just skirting around the tonic note until the very end. While it’s a standard composition trick, I do think it’s a well-written tune creating a narrative with a clear beginning and an end even without the lyrics.

The song has been recorded by many artists, Bill Evans and Chet Baker among others. Baker’s version is pretty nice too, as his soft way of playing the trumpet fits this kind of ballad well.

J. J. Cale – Magnolia

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A song evocative of summer evenings, its laid-back tempo sets the tone that was present in a lot of Cale’s music afterwards, present already on his first album. The husky vocals approach a whisper, suggesting gentleness, as if the situation is too tender to state anything in a normal voice. Maybe it is very late or early in the morning, the singer is missing his beloved, and doesn’t want to disturb the neighbours, yet has to keep on singing.

The lyrics refer to gentle mornings, but the summer breeze and the sound of the music make me rather think of a warm evening. Instruments pop in for a moment, bursts of strummed guitars or bent guitar notes lingering like on a swaying branch. Little birds flapping their wings, these softly moaning notes. The guitar breathes, sings a slow line, then returns to silence, waiting, inhaling deeply.

The chords and melody are simple: for the most part the song uses just alternating tonic and subdominant chords. But simplicity doesn’t mean it’s easy to do. A simple song may approach universal feelings, like here the slight tension and release of the chord functions, but there’s always a risk of sounding trite, evoking impressions of children’s songs and musical clichés. The difficulty in these bluesy sounds is that one must make the song interesting with elements that have been used countless times before. Sometimes the differences are very subtle, which creates a challenge for the listener.

Here I think the song has such a unique style that it transcends the simplicity to create a mood that is at the same time universal and particular. The particularity comes from the sound that creates a sense of time and place, and that is enough to make it interesting. That’s why Cale was a good guitarist even if the lines aren’t fast or complex. However, I find that appreciating such music does require an already existing mood, or at least willingness to dive into this tranquil meditation on summer and the wistful, if happy, longing for a distant lover.

Last week I was picking bilberries in the evening (my freezer is now full, so the season is already over for me), and after listening to the radio I listened to music on shuffle, and this song came on just as I was walking home, still in the woods but close enough to the edge of the forest to see pine trees golden with light, everything turning orange as I slowly stepped toward the setting sun. No need to rush anywhere, just casually traipsing on the rocky path, avoiding roots and fallen trunks.

I don’t know what magnolia smells like, and my impressions of New Orleans or Tulsa, where Cale hailed from, are probably far from reality. But that’s one of the fascinating aspects of music: it can fit the occasion on the other side of the planet. Is the feeling exactly the same as understood in a forest full of bilberries and somewhere in the southern US? Probably not. It doesn’t really matter, and humans still have similar feelings, similar longing and ambitions, finding comfort resting in the summer breeze recalling happy morning greetings.

The Alan Parsons Project – Old and Wise

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Sung by Colin Blunstone of The Zombies, Old and Wise sounds thoroughly wistful even while the lyrics are a message of hope. This ambiguity makes it possible to pick whatever interpretation we need at the time. It is a song about love and hope, forgetting and remembering, acceptance and defiance, all kinds of conflicting emotions that may be present when thinking of death. The same ambiguity is reflected in the music which is both dramatic and sensitive.

The line “you were a friend of mine” strikes me as a central point, and it’s reiterated with a different focus. The first time it’s about the narrator thinking of the happiness, intimacy, completion. How humans are social animals and depend on each other even when things are going awry. How friendship and love are important and give meaning to our lives, and how they make us feel like bitter words and autumn winds lose their meaning. It is not only a song about facing death but about facing life. How to make existence seem meaningful when there are countless narratives to choose from, many of them full of bitterness, degradation and despair?

The second time the line is a plea for those left behind to remember the friendship. It is significant that the narrator doesn’t ask to be remembered as such, the focus is on the friendship, and maybe even further on the friend. What the friend should remember is his or her own experience of the friendship as something to be happy about, all the things shared, and the importance they held for the deceased. Not focus on the sadness of what has been lost but the importance of something having been real in the first place, the existence of a relationship. When the physical form is gone, that which is intangible, the notion, the relationship still remains, only now its existence only depends on the one left behind.

Nevertheless, I can’t help feeling sad when hearing this song, but maybe because I associate it with an old break-up. At the time I was listening to The Alan Parsons Project, and maybe I was thinking of the good things we had and how I’d like to grow old still remembering the relationship fondly, even though things didn’t work out. To remember the friendship and laughter and not be bitter about things ending.

The lyrics also state “When I’m old and wise,” which implies that the narrator doesn’t necessarily think like this, but recognizes that it is the sort of wisdom to aspire to, the attitude that would be good to have when growing older. Strangely enough, the older I become, the less certain I am of things, questioning what our notions of wisdom even mean, and whether it is important to define wisdom in the first place.

The song reminds me of this poem by Christina Rossetti. Perhaps not a direct influence, but I’m sure the songwriters would have known such a classic poem on death. It is possible to remember, and yet look forward in life.

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann’d:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

Jacques Brel – La chanson des vieux amants

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Growing up in an age of doubt and indifference I felt that Brel was a breath of fresh air in his unabashed romanticism. Many of his songs deal with love, but it’s not the idealized version, but something that seems more real, heartbreaking even when it is passionate. Feelings of inferiority abound in many of his songs, as well as infidelity and strange masochism. And yet there is always this feeling that love can conquer all, because it is such a great force that it slices through any obstacle.

La chanson des vieux amants, the song of old lovers. is just as much about the passage of time as it is about love. What changes, what remains the same. There is beautiful melancholy in thinking back on the storms survived, and the decisions to stay together despite them, or maybe even because of them, each solution found bringing a renewed sense of unity. Brel sings of the room without a crib, in an offhand way referring to how childlessness might have affected them. Also mentioned are the infidelities, and how the man “lost the taste for conquest” which apparently once seemed essential. Yet the love goes on, transforming with time. The song implies that love is something fluid, as the passion and the pain, the conquest and surrendering that have constituted its essence, now are something different.

So time has revealed that it was not an essence at all, not something unchanging and ineluctable. The music and the delivery convey an idea that it was always fragile, and that may because of the realization that our ideas of love are not set in stone, and hence the relationship itself is always fragile. Yet the refrain is a consolation. No matter what has happened, the belief remains. There is faith in both love and the other person, the two perhaps becoming inseparable as time goes on.

Perhaps it is the flaws of the relationship that make the hope in the song so touching. There is a feeling that the relationship hasn’t exactly been a healthy one, and yet by strength of feeling or sheer stubbornness they’ve persisted. It is romanticism born not ouf of an ideal of happily ever after, but out of the notion that despite the unhappy moments two people can still make it work out and even find peace and solace. What remains in the end is just the confession, I love you, after all the things we’ve been through, nothing else really matters. It gives hope that no matter what the problems might be, this may be the cynosure guiding the two people home, to their shelter, even when it’s crooked, roof leaking and the wind wailing in the corners of the room.

Frankie Valli – Can’t Take My Eyes Off You

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An impassioned confession if I ever heard one, Can’t Take My Eyes Off You sounds fresh and attractive when its lyrics make me wonder what is the difference between the universal and the banal. When it comes to emotions, the difference is highly subjective, which is in a way ironic: what we consider universal is still subjective. Certainly “I love you baby” isn’t the most original line, but in the song’s context it sounds heartfelt and genuine, thanks to Frankie Valli’s delivery and the sound of the orchestra.

In addition to vocals, the composition and arrangement play a huge part in making this a classic. There is constant tension created with the use of triplets and borrowed chords, namely inserting parallel minor chords after major. Also notable is the rhythm section, how it creates tension with the dotted notes in the bass and the well-placed snare hits in the verses. Even when the melody is staying in one place, these compositional tricks make the music interesting, particularly in the booming brass before the chorus.

And what about the lyrics? Well, there is another source of tension, that between the confidence of the chorus and the fragility in the verses, the certainty of one’s own feelings and the slight disbelief in the reality of the situation. It is appealing because love is the engine and the motivation for most people, yet seems rare. Among all the people we meet, only a few turn out to be compatible, and yet when love becomes real, it seems instinctive, flowing with ease. It is a sudden realization that seems like a miracle, too good to be true.

But of course the rarity of love is also just another perspective, a prejudice and the romantic notion that rejects the whole of humanity in the thought that this one person among all the people in the world is unique. Yet the differences that people have, especially among those growing up in the same culture, as actually very small. All guinea pigs are cute, but looking at our peers we see endless variations and emphasize small differences, discerning attractive and unattractive qualities, thereby determining who is supposedly compatible.

Meanwhile there is nothing else to do but wait, wait for the permission to stare, the permission to share all the pent-up feelings of affection and desire. When it actually does happen, let the horns play, let the drums boom, the chest swell with pride and passion. It is real, it always was, and that is the most exhilarating realization of all that transforms the whole world, the past and the future, this one moment in the present, a touch, a gaze. It’s quite alright.

Al Stewart – I’m Falling

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I was 17 when I first visited London, and I distinctly recall buying Orange, the album which included this song, on that trip. It was in an HMV store among a plethora of other albums I wanted to buy, back when it was much more possible than today to just go to a record shop and find things that most people haven’t heard of. I also remember the innocent energy being there with friends, climbing lamp posts and finding delight in smelling black pepper.

And partly I associate that innocence also with this song, which just might be the most romantic one among Stewart’s repertoire. It is full of anticipation, and while it was probably written in an already established relationship, I also remember it as a symbol of early infatuation, that time when everything seems possible, love is an experience of being healed, a feeling of hope and fulfilment.

There is a clear sense of time and place, images that convey leisurely existence with nowhere to go, no obligations, only the sense of burgeoning affection. It is appealing because of the sense that very little is moving, yet emotionally there is a direction, falling in love, gradually moving toward understanding and intimacy. The world is moving in one direction, but it barely affects the lovers who are making tea and having biscuits, getting to know each other, somehow aware of jobs or people going to movies. It always struck me as a lovely image, and experiencing the feeling oneself for the first time is very memorable. It’s as if nothing truly exists except this bubble of tenderness.

Yet time keeps passing. It is Sunday afternoon turning into evening, and the lovers are aware of Monday morning, and the temptation to not go to work the next day. But perhaps it is this awareness of the limits of this freedom that gives it such a special hue, makes it possible to concentrate on the senses, being present just for each other. Awareness time can either make us live in the moment ever more fully, holding on to each sensation, or it can make us perpetually absent, always living for the future that never arrives, always planning ahead, thinking of what could be instead of what is.

The song is an exploration of the present within that context, the preciousness of each second spent together while it’s still possible, gentle hands, the gentleness of light inside while the night is falling. When it is possible to live like that, fully in the moment, sharing the sensations with someone who wants just as much to be there, to open up to that intimacy, there’s really nothing else to wish for. How nourishing the light can be, the touching fingers. The endless waves that keep crashing to the shore, the undulation of time itself. The afternoon tea, the conversations, the presence, the sleep, all rolling together to form this wonderful bubble.