“You have cultural icons who are celebrities to the people. That kind of scares people in a political climate who want control. They can't control them, so all they can do is make the press take control, debase these people and try to take their credibility.” »read more
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This was written by Irving Gordon, who wrote a lot of comedic and parody songs. Some other songs he wrote include "What Will I Tell My Heart" (recorded by Bing Crosby), "Me, Myself And I" (recorded by Billie Holiday) and "Mama From The Train" (recorded by Patti Page).
Nat King Cole recorded this with Orchestra leader and arranger Nelson Riddle in 1951. It became a Hit again in 1991 (US #14, UK #19) for Nat's daughter, Natalie, when her vocals were dubbed with his to make a duet. Her version was included on her album Unforgettable: With Love, which contained other tributes to her father as well, as she also recorded "Mona Lisa," "Nature Boy" and "Route 66." Natalie's version won the 1991 Grammy Award for Song Of The Year, earning a Grammy for Irving Gordon 40 years after he'd written it. (thanks, Darryl - Queensland, Australia)
The 2002 album When Pigs Fly: Songs You Never Thought You'd Hear featured a version of this song recorded by action film star Jackie Chan and Folk singer Ani DiFranco. Cevin Soling, who put the album together, explains: "The Jackie Chan/Ani DiFranco duet was pretty trippy. Ani recorded her part in Buffalo, and Jackie recorded out in Hong Kong, and I brought the tracks that Ani had recorded in Buffalo out to Hong Kong. I guess I was a little surprised, because Jackie does all these films, I kind of expected his English to be a little better than it is. And his English is okay, but there were a few places where he was stumbling, and it turned into me singing the lines to Jackie and him singing them back to me - you can imagine how surreal that is. So that was a blast, getting time in China, and also getting to spend time with Jackie Chan, and he was really sweet. He arrived a bit early, and he had a body guard, which I thought was a bit funny. There was something really funny about him having a body guard, but his body guard had a broken arm or wrist or something. One of his arms was in a sling. So that was all kind of strange and surreal in and of itself. He had just come from some Save The Panda rally and was very involved in a lot of causes, and he was expressing his frustration over the newspapers only being sensational and not discussing the causes and things that he cares a lot about. So he was very earnest that way. But the man is like made of granite. If you were to hit him you would really hurt yourself. He was just solid. It would be like punching a mountain. And yet he's still unbelievably flexible.
There's a good friend of mine, her name's Jen White, and those were her 2 idols. She was just in love with Jackie Chan and Ani DiFranco, and so it was sort of a dare kind of thing. It kind of came from the idea, how funny it would be if I could hang out with both of her idols and put them together and do this thing." (Thanks to Cevin for speaking with us. His full interview is available in the Songfacts Interviews. His website is cevinsoling.com.)
More duets
More songs that became hits when they were re-released
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Comments:
There was a parody on SNL with Natalie Cole doing duets with other dead guys (like Elvis)
- Sara, Silver Spring, MD
This song was played in the last episode of Will and Grace by Karen and Jack, at the piano
- daniel, Mexico City, Mexico