(Ah, the Apple Trees) When the World Was Young

Steyn On-line ^ | July 17, 2022 | Mark Steyn

[Twotone]

Bastille Day, France's fête nationale, fell on Thursday, when I was off the air. Thus it went unobserved at SteynOnline, which seems a bit unfair to our many French patrons. So as I chance to find myself on French soil. So, quelques jours de retard, it seemed appropriate to pick something suitably Gallic for our chanson de la semaine. How about..?

Je me lève et je te bouscule Tu n'te réveilles pas Comme d'habitude...

But no: we did that just the other week. And, if we're going with anglicized franco-pop, we should at least try and pick something that retains a little of the flavor of the old country. So for quelquechose more evocatively Gallic we have to turn to Johnny Mercer, anglo lyricist of two of the greatest French songs - "Les feuilles mortes", which became "Autumn Leaves", and "Le Chevalier de Paris", which became today's Song of the Week. They're both on the same recurring Johnny Mercer theme - the passage of time and the melancholic regrets that creep up as it draws down. But "Autumn Leaves" is more specifically attuned to the season (and thus seems a bit odd for mid-July) whereas the second song is all about a sense of place.

As you'd expect for a celebration of France's national holiday, our story begins in São Paulo, Brazil. That's where Philippe Gérard Bloch was born in 1923. In another life, he might have stayed there and invented the bossa nova with Antonio Carlos Jobim. But his parents were French and happened to be friends with Maurice Ravel, whose Pavane pour une infante défunte was, incidentally, turned into a pretty neat American pop song (a pavane is a slow processional dance and "pour une infante défunte" means "for a dead princess"...

[Twotone]

A favorite song of mine, & a rendition I'd never heard before from Dinah Shore. Interesting, the different lyrics.

[Sans-Culotte]

Being a huge Sinatra fan, I really like his version on the "Point of No Return" album. I think the album is a little better than Steyn does, but Steyn is correct that Sinatra had a "mail it in" attitude on his last couple of contractual obligation albums for Capitol (a pity since Sinatra's best work was at Capitol). I daresay I was disappointed when I first listened to the album. Starting as it does with such a brilliant version of "When the World Was Young", it could only be downhill from there. In keeping with the theme of the album, all the songs on "Point of No Return" are about goodbyes, wistful looks at the past, memories, etc. Considering Sinatra's attitude, the album is way better than it has a right to be.

I saw Marlene Dietrich in a filmed concert doing "When the World Was Young". She talked it more than she sang it. She started is as "It isn't by chance I happen to be a femme fatale, the toast of Paris".

[Bertha Fanation]

Disagree. Also a major Sinatra fan. Rate this as one of his best albums, and probably his best album cover. If he was phoning it in, he sure was a good connection.

[Buttons12]

LOL, all I saw was the thread title and I KNEW it was a Steyn.

[Sans-Culotte]

It's a good album but could have been better. Sinatra was such an artist that even when he half-heartedly did an album, it still came off. On one of the songs, "There Will Never Be Another You", there is an obvious dub of the last word "you". This was because there was a technical glitch and the studio wanted to do a re-do. Sinatra refused and tore his music sheet in half. They had to find that "you" from somewhere else. No one knows where it was pulled from. Sinatra's attitude throughout the sessions of Point of No Return was "let's get it over with". On most of the songs he only did one take. I do like the album and do still listen to it, but I cannot rate as highly as other Capitol albums like Wee Small Hours, Swingin' Lovers, Swingin' Affair, Only the Lonely, Where Are You? The Capitol album that really suffers from Sinatra's don't give a damn attitude is Come Swing With Me!. He is not in good voice on several of the songs but obviously didn't care to redo them later.

For more info about Sinatra's sessions, I suggest Sinatra! The Song is You by Will Friedwald and Sessions With Sinatra by Chuck Granata (Granata produced the complete set of Sinatra's Columbia recordings).

[Sans-Culotte]

Correction: The song with the dub of "you" is These Foolish Things (Remind Me of You).

[Savage Beast]

"Summers at Bordeaux
Rowing the bateau...

It's Bor-DEAUX but it's not ba-TEAU. The French say BA-teau, and Mercer rowed his a wee bit out of his depth there.

Not at all. The word bateau has been a part of the English language for at least two centuries and has been commonly used around Mercer's hometown Savannah for at least that long. It is today. A bateau is a small boat, either rowed or used with a small outboard motor. Hang out on the waters around Savannah and you're sure to hear it.

And also, the French pronunciation would be more like BA-TEAU than BA-teau.