The song of the day for Wednesday, January 1, 2014 is “When Do The Bells Ring For Me.”
About This Song
Today’s song was written by Charles DeForest, one of New York’s preeminent cabaret singers and pianists, who performed in Manhattan nightclubs for more than forty years. His songs were performed by Tony Bennett, who was one of his great champions, and other singers including George Shearing and Blossom Dearie.
About This Version
Yesterday, we featured “Penthouse Serenade” from Tony Bennett’s 1959 album Hometown, My Town, an album that eloquently expresses the hopes and dreams of a young man starting out in Manhattan. Today, we book-end that experience with today’s song, “When Do The Bells Ring For Me” from the 1990 Astoria: Portrait of the Artist, the autobiographical memory album of the young man just returning from serving in World War II and wondering what the future holds for him.
I cannot listen to either of these albums without immediately listening to the other. For this author, these albums describe, beautifully, everything that we all feel as we are on the road to becoming who we finally are: love, hope, loss, bravado, fear, wonder, self-doubt and, finally, back to love.
Happy New Year to you all.
http://open.spotify.com/track/1m1Zt0FKHaXYAYllzshFQt
“When Do The Bells Ring For Me,” as well as the album Astoria: Portrait of the Artist, is available from iTunes.
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