While waiting for Brian Wilson to release his new collection of tunes composed by George and Ira Gershwin this coming August, it was brought to my attention that in 1959, Ella Fitzgerald had already tackled the Gershwin Songbook teamed up with Nelson Riddle and his orchestra . Ira Gershwin himself was quoted as saying he “had never known how good our songs were until I heard Ella sing them”.
Well, how can I ignore that type of ringing endorsement from the songwriter himself? So pardon me while I continue to ignore the popular musical landscape of today, opting instead to dig deeply into what is commonly considered one of the most ambitious achievements in western popular music, “Ella Fitzgerald Sings The George and Ira Gershwin Songbook”.
I’m starting out with a delightful little ditty called “Sam and Delilah”, written in 1930 for a show called “Girl Crazy”. Seems it’s about a girl who screwed anything that moved, and then moved on until falling for a married bloke. She fell for him so hard that she “Got in action, did her “kootch” , and gave him satisfaction till he fell ‘neath her spell with the aid of love and “hootch”.
But when Sam tried to leave Delilah to go back to his wife, she tracked him down, chopped him into pieces and buried his body in a shallow grave. Wow, this is better than death metal, although any chick that “does her kootch” pretty much has my attention from the git-go. But like the song says, stay away from these kind of girls sonny, or you’re liable to end up missing in action permanently .
The moral of the story is summed up in this lyric which goes:
“It’s always that way with passion
So cowboy, learn to behave
Or else, you’re liable to cash in
With no tombstone on your grave”
So to summarize, the first song here is about crazy chicks with shaved beavers (hey, I’m the listener, I get to interpret this any way I choose, and besides there’s no video to tell me what to visualize) hacking poor bastards to pieces. Yep, I think I’m onto something here. Lady O’ Gaga and Kesha will have to wait, cause this shit is way more exciting.