Moonlight and Music

By Tim Smith

I’ve been a music lover since I was a kid, and was brought up to appreciate the classic American songbook. I majored in music education in college and taught for a few years upon graduation. Some years ago, I got back into singing and I can still do a mean lounge lizard act on karaoke nights. My specialty is the stuff Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Tony Bennett performed.

I’ve always admired the way a talented lyricist like Cole Porter, Sammy Cahn or Oscar Hammerstein could tell a beautiful story set to music. I’m especially fond of Cole Porter, and the way he expressed emotions with words. Since Night Music is the theme here, I want to highlight one of my favorite Frank Sinatra albums, “Moonlight Sinatra.” Each song is about the moon and the romantic effects it seems to have on us. Check out these lyrics for “Moonlight Becomes You”:   

“You’re all dressed up to go dreaming; don’t tell me I’m wrong. What a night to go dreaming. Mind if I tag along?”

If that isn’t an invitation for seduction, I don’t know what is. The same can be found on another track, “Oh, You Crazy Moon.”

“When they met, the way they smiled, I saw that I was through. Oh, you crazy moon! What did you do?”

And there’s this lyric that reveals a starry-eyed infatuation gone awry:

“I guess I should have seen right through you, but the moon got in my eyes.”

The ability to tell a love story with lyrics is a rare gift. One only has to look at the output from the prolific pen of Irving Berlin for proof. Of all the songs he composed, my personal favorite is “Be Careful, It’s My Heart” from the film “Holiday Inn.”

“Be careful, it’s my heart. It’s not my watch you’re holding, it’s my heart. It’s not the note I sent you that you quickly burned; it’s not the book I leant you that you never returned.”

Sheer poetry set to music.

Over the summer, I had the opportunity to once again hear the great Tony Bennett in concert. At 91 years young, he can still put across a song with an energy most people half his age would envy. One of my favorites from his repertoire is the you’ll-be-sorry-you-left-me blues ballad, “I Wanna Be Around.”

“I wanna be around to pick up the pieces when somebody breaks your heart, a somebody twice as smart as I. A somebody who will swear to be true, as you used to do with me, who’ll leave you to learn that misery loves company.”    

In addition to these classics, I’ll admit to having a fondness for more recent love songs. I always get melancholy when I hear Bryan Adams sing “Have You Ever Loved a Woman?” and Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” brings back memories of long-ago dances with someone special. One that still gets to me after all these years, by the late Jim Croce, is “I’ll Have to Say I Love You in A Song.”

“Every time I tried to tell you, the words just came out wrong, so I’ll have to say I love you in a song.”

It doesn’t get much more romantic than that.

Sinatra was blessed to have the talented Nelson Riddle as his primary arranger. Besides being a great orchestrator with a knack for setting the proper mood, Riddle had a philosophy which lends itself to this topic cycle. He always equated music with sex, and he had a wonderful quote about it— “After all, what else is there?”

Think about that the next time you’re programming the soundtrack for a romantic evening by the fire.