A melancholic, baroque pop song.
It's an hand-made jewel, with this piano scale doubled by the voice, and those gently waves made by the string arrangements.
Your time *perdu*.
from Walk away Ren�e/Pretty Ballerina (Smash srs-67088) available on CD - There's gonna be a storm. The complete recordings 1966-69 (Mercury)
07 May 04 ·delicado: I have to agree that this one is fantastic; thanks for recommending it!
Dusty's intimate reading of this song is pin point perfect (no surprise!). Starting out in low quiet tones, the song crescendos as she promises anything to make her love stay with her for just a few minutes more. Heartbreakingly beautiful!!
from The Look Of Love (Philips PHS 600 256) available on CD - The Dusty Springfield Anthology (Box Set) (Mercury 314 553 501)
A great song that describes the joy in reuniting with the one you love after being separated. Two versions of this song were recorded. This version appeared on Dusty's album of the same name, and the other version was used in the film 'Casino Royale'. This album version is superior simply for the fact that the sound engineer put a slight echo into the vocals and it gives this song a haunting sound that makes the beautiful words even more lovely than before.
from The Look Of Love (Philips PHS 600 256) available on CD - the Dusty Springfield Anthology (Box Set) (Mercury 314 553 501)
The perfect theme to Roman Polanski's underrated comic horror film, The Fearless Vampire Killers. With stacked vocal harmonies, suggesting the background singers at some sort of Bulgarian black mass, floating on bat wings over a very jazzy rhythm section, this song is, at once, very creepy and very funny. I have long believed that Siouxsie and The Banshees came into existence entirely due this influence of this track. (Play it back to back with "Switch" or "Israel" or "Cascade" sometime, and you'll see what I mean.) Stereolab likewise. Broadcast or Goldfrapp could do a brilliant cover of it.
from Complete Recordings Of Krzysztof Komeda Vol 19, available on CD (Polonia Records)
This one has really been haunting me. I recently heard this rare and sought after album, and was entranced by the opening track, a devastating vocal. Although Lani Groves sings in English, in a style very similar to Sergio Mendes and Brasil 66, I knew that this was a Brazilian track that I had heard before.
Researching a song with as generic a title as 'I want your kiss' is hard though, and with no knowledge of who the composer was, most of the search engine results were soft porn stories. After a while I threw on Elis Regina's first album, Samba - eu canto assim, and happily found the information I was looking for. The original Portuguese song is called 'Sou sem paz', and was written by Adylson Godoy, who may or may not be the same person as Amilton Godoy, who was the pianist in the Zimbo Trio.
After all my research, I was disappointed to learn that this song has hardly ever been recorded; the only versions I know of are this and those by the Zimbo Trio and Elis Regina.
Trivia aside, this is a nice fusion of several of my musical passions. The chord sequence is unusual, delicate and surprising, and the vocal is passionate. I think it would be fair to say that Lani Groves doesn't have quite Elis's passionate delivery, but for me this is offset by the beautiful backing arrangement, featuring some great organ playing.