Some of the greatest love songs are the most desperate, and All of Me, the wonderful jazz standard is one of the most pleading:
“I'm no good without you
Take my lips
I want to lose them
Take my arms
I'll never use them”
You can see a smashing rendition by Dinah Washington in this weeks movie pick Jazz on a Summer's Day, but this hit has been recorded over 2000 times by a variety of artists.
Isn't it amazing how different a song can sound when it's performed by two different artists? Not a fan of Sheryl Crow (even if we do go to the same Starbucks sometimes), I never enjoyed the radio hit The First Cut is the Deepest, but while reading about Steve Marriott I learned about the nearly forgotten original sung by dynamic and gorgeous PP Arnold and written by Cat Stevens (whose own version is also pretty great).
The artist, who counted Mick Jagger among her champions and played next to Jimi Hendrix and The Who, had a huge hit with the song and continues to record.
Featured in the only sex scene that stars a man with actual skin over his body, You Are My Rose is by far the most memorable lite-Skinemaxy song to come out of this week's incredible “film”, The Room (which I have re-watched a few times since writing my entry, and if I could, I'd go on forever).
Singer Kitra Williams is actually a quite accomplished performer, she starred in Broadway's The Color Purple and is an activist who began the Agape Academy an:
“Organization honoring youth and young adults
desiring to rededicate their gifts and talents for the Gospel sake. We cultivate the gifts of our youth and encourage them to minister messages of hope through theater, film and cartoon animation. We provide scholarships and national opportunities for their talents to be showcased at out annual Agape Awards ceremony.”
Plus, as this song can attest, she can really set the mood for spiral staircase sex.
I remember going with a big group of older girls to see Rocky IV in the theater for my sister's birthday. James Brown opens the drama with an over the top showgirl extravaganza to stick it to the Russians (aka Dolph Lundgren and Brigitte Nielsen). But then Dolph ends up killing Apollo Creed in the match and Rocky has to train in the snow and get revenge in Moscow (sans showgirls). He beats Dolph bloody, but decides not to kill him, rather to give a rousing speech instead that ends the cold war.
I posted some rousing stills over at RC.
Nothing ever really dies, does it? Lola, a Kinks hit from 1970 gained, new popularity with the questionably witty Yoda spoof by Werid Al, who in turn has found new popularity with the stoned children of today as cable access host Uncle Muscles. Still, no matter how wacky Al's lyrics got (I know Darth Vader's really got you annoyed/ But remember, if you kill him, then you'll be unemployed”) they're no freakier than the original, which chronicles a night with a transvestite.
Some stories claim it was based on the exploits of their manager, others claim Lola is actually Candy Darling with whom Davies may or may not have had an affair. Either way, here's a transciprt of her interviewing him for Interview Magazine in 1973. And speaking of never dying, Darling is featured on her death bed on the cover of Antony and the Johnson's I am a Bird Now.
Why do I mention it now?
Because it's confirmed that the franchise that shaped by childhood, that started Johnny Depp's career, and introduced this fabulous song to the world (in a scene featuring invisible kung fu fighting no less) is finally getting the inevitable Offspring video director turned crappy movie director remake treatment, and essentially destroying a small part of me. At least we have the music and can reminisce.
Here's what I said back on 10/16/06:
I have been in love with this song since I bought the single in Jr. High and even then I was royally disappointed by the look of the band. Clearly, these dudes are not cool, even the band in Lost Boys was more respectable, and yet this song is cool–way cool.
It also became a mystery, I knew it was from a movie at some point, but which one? I thought Valley Girl, perhaps. Wrong – it is from the movie I was obsessed with for a long time – Nightmare on Elm St. 4 – The Dream Master . You know, the one with Alice, who starts meek but ends up doing nun-chucks; the one with her totally fine brother who has to fight an invisible Freddy in a Steven Seagal worthy set and ends up a meatball on Freddy's pizza; the one with the brainiac girl with asthma; the one with the girl who works out to Sinead O'Connor's “Put Your Hands On Me” only the be turned in a roach at Freddy's Roach Motel; the one that starts with Kincaid's death in the car junkyard…. Yes, that one! See I can remember nearly every frame, but couldn't remember that this, one of my very favorites, was in it. Oh, for shame, Brittany.
I never counted myself as a particular fan of Bon Jovi's mega hit and working class romance, Livin on a Prayer until my brother's wedding, where the excellent band belted it out and the best rock out dance of the night was had.
While Lovin' You has become a bit of a shorthand joke in movies and TV shows to represent a kind of cheesy, schmaltzy romance that no one seems to believe in with such a hazy soft focus any more, I find it so simple both lyrically “loving you is easy because you're beautiful” and pretty that it still fills me with a sweet feeling.
As sweet as the baby's breath that halos Minnie Riperton's afro and the fact that she used to sing this to her baby daughter, comedienne Maya Rudolph.
On an old episode of This American Life, David Sedaris instilled a very definite fear in liberal radio listeners with his account of hitchhiking shenanigans and with the quote, “They popped in an 8-track of the Ozark Mountain Daredevils… that was my punishment.” It's an unfair smear job that I fear left an indelible scar on the rep of the bearded band – even Ira Glass gets a smirky little jab in at their expense.
The band's tune Jackie Blue has been happily flottering through my brain for days, like an animated little songbird from Missouri; they really don't deserve an association with almost getting killed on the highway – in fact, they're about as frightening as a countrified slice of Bread.
Jackie Blue is a top hit of the hillbilly soft rock genre which I suppose, for some people, is just as frightening as a hitchhike gone wrong…. but not me.
If you watch as much NY1 as I do, you'll be overjoyed by the prospect of becoming the next artist to perform their jingle. Join the ranks of Nncle Junior and the rap duo that plays violins. Of course, without any musical skills, it will be less probable that I will won (or even enter the contest), but I thought I'd pass the opportunity on to you.
24, 7… that's what we're here for!