"gardenia perfume lingering on a pillow...
the sigh of midnight trains in empty stations...
the waiters whistling as the last bar closes...
the scent of smoldering leaves...
two lovers on the street who walk like dreamers..."
the greatest song of 1936.
gold standard: etta james*
nice and abstract: marc ribot
wonderfully over the top: brian ferry
i love how clearly you can envision the singer moving through his apartment, noting the scattered feminine signifiers and maybe picking them up to inspect
*an overwrought studio mess, i blame the production style on the era. the intro clarinet is clunky, the rhythm section plods. somehow, though, it does a service to miss james savant vocalization. she owns this, down to the 1:48/1:58 stutters. if anyone else described their heart as a dancer, i would roll my eyes, but you can hear how her the microphone fails to contain her voice, how she's bigger than the recording booth. you almost don't notice what she's saying because her emotion so outshines the lyric. the string section compliments her with shimmers of late afternoon sunlight on creek water. sometimes they tremble like red leaves on the end of an autumn branch, or spiral upwards like a pygmy gale.
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