# The delights of youtube alternatives. These Foolish Things.



## Belowpar (Jan 14, 2015)

I have often enjoyed an evening youtube searching for alternative takes of a favourite song. If this idea catches on I hope others will pick a favourite song, select their recommended versions and if they are lucky others will alert them to alternatves that they had been unaware of.. (hint!).

I'll start with what has been called the ultimate list song. A series of romantic images that cinematically evoke what the singers is...missing. It can be a song of lost longing, regret or jaunty pleasant memories and has attracted many many fine singers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/These_Foolish_Things_(Remind_Me_of_You)

Who wouldn't want to dwell on images like

"A cigarette that bears a lipstick's traces,
An airline ticket to romantic places,

A tinkling piano in the next apartment,
Those stumbling words that told you what my heart meant,

The first daffodil and long excited cables,
And candle lights on little corner tables,

The sigh of midnight trains in empty stations,
Silk stockings tossed aside, dance invitations.

Oh, how the ghost of you clings!
These foolish things remind me of you..."

Rumour has it the song was turned down by everyone until found on the composers piano by the pre war London favourite Hutch. Back in the 1930's when nightclub entertainers had real style.





I love Hutch but if I'm going to listen to an early recording this is the one Billlie Holiday


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## Belowpar (Jan 14, 2015)

So many have recorded this 
Sinatra has to be listened to and often I like to compare his versions with Nat King Cole's. Neither they Sam Cooke or his disciple Rod Stewart make my selection.

Ella includes the delicious entry (but its a bit slow?)





NO one manages diction in song quite like Mabel Mercer. This is from a series of concerts that helped revive the lost art of cabaret that had a revival in the dying days of the last century.
Her voice was probably long gone by this so she speaksings it in a Rex Harrison manner.






I saw Andrea Marcovicci perform in London several times, her star rose on the back of the cabaret revival.. When I first saw her I felt we'd met in a previous life, and I couldn't quite put my finger on it until I later heard shed had a recurring part in Hill St Blues! AS her Wiki page says, she's "perpetually glamourous". 
This is perhaps the best straight version with most of the verses and a lovely jazzy coda.


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## Belowpar (Jan 14, 2015)

But the first version I knew is one of my favourite deliciously eccentric performances. Most of the lyrics are included and the music isn't even spoilt by a reggae/rock beat. 
The critic Robert Cushman nails the eccentricity as "a mode of speech that democratically regards all syllables as equal" . This may not qualify as great singing, but my that's some performance.

"Remind me of you...just you."


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

Excellent idea for a thread. I offer a version of Sweet Home Alabama by the Leningrad Cowboys + the Red Army Choir:


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## Belowpar (Jan 14, 2015)

Dr Johnson said:


> Excellent idea for a thread. I offer a version of Sweet Home Alabama by the Leningrad Cowboys + the Red Army Choir:


OI! "naff" off and start your own thread.:devil:


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## Belowpar (Jan 14, 2015)

Just listened thanks that's a big improvement, as is.


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

Belowpar said:


> OI! "naff" off and start your own thread.:devil:


Apologies. I obviously got the wrong end of the stick.


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## cwarchc (Apr 28, 2012)

Love this

How about 
Alabama song by Kurt Weill





and





or possibly


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## Belowpar (Jan 14, 2015)

cwarchc said:


> Love this
> 
> How about
> Alabama song by Kurt Weill
> ...


Excellent post but ... I was hoping to stick to one song per thread so we could really see how a song can be handled and the meaning changed depending on the time it's recorded and the personality of the performer. Alabama song would be ideal to look closer at, but does it's idyosiycratic styling defy individual nuance? Off the top of my head I'd include versions by Bowie and Nina Simone as worthy of listening. But with Alabama Song I think its a case of all versions sounding more alike no matter who's singing compared to other songs.

Also I've been wondering why more people havent suggested alternative Folish Things covers? There's lots of Jazz covers too. Ultimately perhaps it's not actually a classic song and all that well known/recorded, more a collectors item and after all it's not Amercian?


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

and


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