wind has died down

There's a song called "I'm Glad There is You," written by Jimmy Dorsey and Paul Madeira (1941).  A line:


"in this world of over-rated pleasures, of under-rated treasures"


silkenly captures your attention and stays in your memory after you've heard it.


Considering this song makes me think of these two passages from Chapter Two of Life, Keith Richards' autobiography:


-------------------- At three or four or five years old, at the end of the war, I was listening to Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Big Bill Broonzy, Louis Armstrong.  It just spoke to me, it was what I listened to every day because my mum played it. ----------------------


--------------------- I was taking in a lot of music then, without really knowing it.  England was often under fog, but there was a fog of words that settled between people too.  One didn't show emotions. 


One didn't actually talk much at all. 


The talk was all around things, codes and euphemisms; some things couldn't be said or even alluded to.  It was a residue of the Victorians and all brilliantly portrayed in those black-and-white movies of the early '60s -- Saturday Night And Sunday Morning, This Sporting Life. 


And life was black-and-white; the Technicolor was just around the corner, but it wasn't there yet in 1959.  People really do want to touch each other, to the heart.  That's why you have music.  If you can't say it, sing it. 


Listen to the songs of the period.  Heavily pointed and romantic, and trying to say things that they couldn't say in prose or even on paper.  Weather's fine, 7:30 p.m., wind has died down, P.S. I love you. -------------------------





____________________________________


Said I many times
Love is illusion
A feeling, result of confusion


With knowing smile
And blasé sigh
A cynical so-and-so was I
I feel so sure
So positive
So utterly unchangingly certain


That I never was aware
Of loving you
'Til suddenly I realized
There was love and you
And I


In this world
Of ordinary people
Extraordinary people
I'm glad there is you


In this world
Of overrated pleasures
Of underrated treasures
I'm glad there is you


I live to love
I love to live with you
Beside me
Beside me
Beside me


This role so new
I'll muddle through
With you to guide me


In this world
Where many, many
Play at love
And hardly any
Stay in love


I'm glad there is you
More than ever
I'm glad there is you


_______________________________________


Lena Horne





performed this song on "The Cosby Show."


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