Corporate Season Sponsor:

Ben Bliss, tenor

Lachlan Glen, piano Sat, Nov 5 / 3 PM / Hahn Hall

Program Strauss: Selections from Sechs Lieder von Adolf Friedrich Graf von Schack, op. 17 Ständchen Nur Mut! Barkarole Ver Lieder, op. 27 Morgen! Boulanger: Clairières dans le ciel No. 4 - Un poète disait No. 7 - Nous nous aimerons tant No. 8 - Vous m’avez regardé avec toute votre âme No. 9 - Les lilas qui avaient fleuri Tosti: Marechiare - Intermission Britten: The Children and Sir Nameless The Last Rose of Summer The Choirmaster’s Burial (from Winter Words)

John Gruen: Spring is Like a Perhaps Hand from Three by E.E. Cummings Lady will You Come with Me Into from Three by E.E. Cummings Lowell Liebermann: The Arrow and the Song from Six Songs on Poems of Henry W. Longfellow Theodore Chanler: I Rise When You Enter Ned Rorem: Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening Eden Ahbez: Nature Boy (Nat King Cole) Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer: One for My Baby (and One More for the Road) Ray Charles: Hallelujah I Love Her So John Gruen’s works are provided courtesy of his daughter, Julia Gruen, to whom his Cummings cycle is dedicated.

About the Program On today’s concert, our recitalists present a distinctly modern program spanning three languages, two hemispheres, and multiple genres, yet what differences we find in language and musical idiom are bridged by time: every composer featured in this recital lived and composed in the twentieth century. While the Strauss and Tosti selections were both written in the waning years of the nineteenth century, both composers bridged the gap between the two centuries, ushering in a new era of composition.

Richard Strauss (1864-1949): Selections from Sechs Lieder von Adolf Friedrich Graf von Schack, op. 17 “Ständchen,” a tale of two young lovers’ late-night rendezvous beneath the town linden tree, begins with the gentle tinkling of piano keys, perhaps the soft twinkling of stars through the leaves. The near-constant flurry of undulating figures in the piano and the frequent leaps in the vocal line capture the excitement of the couple. Von Schack’s poetry is laden with symbolism: linden, nightingale, and rose, all evocative of young love, leave little to the imagination. In this song, one of Strauss’ earliest numbered works, we see already his mastery of building tension and portraying unbridled joy. The boldness of the first song stands in sharp contrast to the winding, chromatic melodies and melancholy which open “Nur Mut!,” yet here too we find deeply emotional writing. In the second and third stanzas the music and text become most impassioned, ascending to the words “glorious blue heaven.” “Barkarole” takes its name from the style of folk songs sung by Venetian gondoliers. The rocking rhythm evokes a boat moving “from wave to wave in a dance.” Another impassioned love song, here Strauss uses increasingly wide leaps to illustrate the narrator’s mounting impatience as he approaches the balcony of his beloved. In von Schack’s poetry we again find frequent evocation of the natural world, a central fascination among Romantic artists.

No. 2 - Ständchen

Serenade

Mach auf, mach auf, doch leise mein Kind, Um keinen vom Schlummer zu wecken. Kaum murmelt der Bach, kaum zittert im Wind Ein Blatt an den Büschen und Hecken. Drum leise, mein Mädchen, daß nichts sich regt, Nur leise die Hand auf die Klinke gelegt.

Open up, open up, but softly, my child, so as to rouse no one from slumber. The brook scarcely murmurs, the breeze scarcely trembles a leaf on bush or hedge. So softly, my maiden, so nothing shall stir, just lay your hand soft on the doorlatch.

Mit Tritten, wie Tritte der Elfen so sacht, Um über die Blumen zu hüpfen, Flieg leicht hinaus in die Mondscheinnacht, Zu mir in den Garten zu schlüpfen. Rings schlummern die Blüten am rieselnden Bach Und duften im Schlaf, nur die Liebe ist wach. Sitz nieder, hier dämmert’s geheimnisvoll Unter den Lindenbäumen, Die Nachtigall uns zu Häupten soll Von unseren Küssen träumen, Und die Rose, wenn sie am Morgen erwacht, Hoch glühn von den Wonnenschauern der Nacht.

With footsteps as light as the footsteps of elves, Hop your way over the flowers, fly lightly out into the moonlit night, and slip to me in the garden. By the rippling brook the flowers slumber, fragrant in sleep; only love is awake. Sit--here the dark is full of mystery, under the linden trees, the nightingale above our heads should dream of our kisses, and the rose, when in the morning it wakes, brightly glows from this bliss drenched night.

No. 5 - Nur Mut!

Take Courage!

Laß das Zagen, trage mutig Deine Sorgen, deine Qual, Sei die Wunde noch so blutig, Heilen wird sie doch einmal.

Leave your hesitating, bear bravely Your worries, your torment! Be the wound, ever so bloody, It shall one day heal.

Unter tiefer Eisesdecke Träumt die junge Knospe schon, Dass der Frühling sie erwecke Mit der Lieder holdem Ton.

Beneath a deep blanket of ice The young bud already dreams That spring awakens it With the lovely sound of song.

Nur empor den Blick gewendet, Und durch düst’res Wolkengrau Brich zuletzt, dass es dich blendet, Glorreich noch des Himmels Blau.

Only turn your gaze aloft, And through the grey of gloomy clouds Breaks at last, to dazzle you, the glorious blue heavens!

Aber auch die trüben Stunden Und die Tränen, die du weinst, laub’, wie Freuden, die entschwunden, Süßer scheinen sie dir einst.

But also in the dim hours, And the tears that you weep— Believe, the joys which disappeared, will one day seem sweeter to you than before.

Und mit Wehmut, halb nur heiter, Scheidest du für immerdar Von dem Leiden, dem Begleiter, Der so lange treu dir war.

And with melancholy, only half-cheerful, Forever say goodbye To sorrow, your companion, Who for so long was faithful to you.

No. 6 - Barkarole

Barcarole

Um der fallenden Ruder Spitzen Zittert und leuchtet ein schimmernder Glanz, Flieht bei jedem Schlage mit Blitzen Hin von Wellen zu Wellen im Tanz.

Around the tips of the falling oars A gleaming radiance trembles and shines, it flies at every stroke with flashes, From wave to wave in a dance.

Mir im Busen von Liebeswonnen Zittert und leuchtet das Herz wie die Flut, Jubelt hinauf zu den Sternen und Sonnen, Bebt zu vergeh’n in der wogenden Glut.

With love’s rapture in my breast, My heart trembles and shines like the flood, Rejoices to the stars and suns above, Quivers and fades away in the surging glow.

Schon auf dem Felsen durch’s Grün der Platane Seh’ ich das säulengetragene Dach, Und das flimmernde Licht am Altane Kündet mir, dass die Geliebte noch wach.

Now on the cliffs through the green of the sycamore I see the column-supported roof, And the shimmering light on the balcony Tells me my beloved is still awake.

Fliege, mein Kahn, und birg uns verschwiegen, Birg uns, selige Nacht des August; Süß wohl ist’s, auf den Wellen sich wiegen, Aber süßer, süßer an ihrer Brust.

Fly, my boat, and hide us discreetly, Hide us, blissful August night! Although it is sweet to sway on the waves, It is sweeter still upon her breast.

“Morgen!,” No. 4 from Vier Lieder, op. 27 1894 saw the unsuccessful premiere of Strauss’ first opera, Guntram; Pauline de Ahna, then Strauss’ fiancée, sang the soprano role. Later that year, the two would be married, and it was for this occasion that Strauss wrote the four songs of opus 27 as a present to Pauline (“Cäcilie,” the second song in the set, the night before the wedding!). Both text and vocal line begin and end mid-thought, the lack of finality suggesting a moment in time stretched into eternity.

No. 4 - Morgen

Text: John Henry Mackay (1864 -1933) Und morgen wird die Sonne wieder scheinen Und auf dem Wege, den ich gehen werde, Wird uns, die Glücklichen, sie wieder einen Inmitten dieser sonnenatmenden Erde. . . Und zu dem Strand, dem weiten, wogenblauen, Werden wir still und langsam niedersteigen, Stumm werden wir uns in die Augen schauen, Und auf uns sinkt des Glückes stummes Schweigen . . .

Tomorrow And tomorrow the sun will shine again, and on the path that I shall take, We will, we happy ones, again be made one upon this sun-breathing earth . . . And to the shore, broad, blue-waved, we shall, quiet and slow, descend, silently, into each other’s eyes we’ll gaze, and on us will fall joy’s speechless silence . . .

Lili Boulanger (1893-1918): Selections from Clairières dans le ciel (Clearing in the Sky) Though illness tragically cut short her life at the age of twenty-four, French composer Lili Boulanger accomplished as much as many of her older counterparts. Born into a highly musical family including celebrated teacher Nadia Boulanger (her older sister), Lili was surrounded by music. A child prodigy and first female winner of the prestigious Prix de Rome at age nineteen, Lili composed a significant volume of works. Clairières dans le ciel, a thirteen-song cycle, stands among her finest achievements. Taken from Francis Jammes’ Tristesses, the cycle ruminates at length on a failed romance. On the first page of an early draft, Lili wrote that the music should be sung as if the relationship were “still fresh in the mind.” “Un poète disait” captures the moment of new love. Harmonies turn on a dime à la Fauré: the effect is pleasantly intoxicating, like the fragrance of spring flowers. In “Nous nous aimerons tant,” the couple is rendered speechless; the text and languorous piano accompaniment share a similar lack of motion. Boulanger sets “Vous m’avez regardé avec toute votre âme,” one of the shortest poems in the entire cycle, with equal measure of tenderness. The narrow descending intervals in the voice suggest a lover’s gentle caresses. As the cycle progresses, the lovers’ affection has begun to fade. “Les lilas qui avaient fleuri” (the ninth song in the complete cycle) opens with a flurry of activity in the piano, like the scattering of autumn leaves. The vocal writing in this song shows Lili Boulanger at her most expressive, as dissonant harmonies clang against the words “my heart should die” and inchoate feelings of anger and frustration burst forth.

No. 4 - Un poète disait

A poet said…

Un poète disait que lorsqu’il était jeune, il fleurissait des vers comme un rosier des roses. Lorsque je pense à elle, il me semble que jase une fontaine intarissable dans mon cœur. Comme sur le lys Dieu pose un parfum d’église, comme il met du corail aux joues de la cerise, je veux poser sur elle, avec dévotion, la couleur d’un parfum, qui n’aura pas de nom.

A poet said that when he was young he blossomed with verse, like rose-bushes with roses. When I think of her, an inexhaustable spring seems to babble in my heart. As God places a church-scent on the lily and coral on the cheeks of the cherry, I wish to give, with devotion, to her the colour of a scent that shall have no name.

No. 7. Nous nous aimerons tant

Our Love Will Equal Our Silence

Nous nous aimerons tant que nous tairons nos mots, En nous tendant la main, quand nous nous reverrons. Vous serez ombragée par d’anciens rameaux Sur le banc que je sais où nous assoierons. Donc nous nous assoierons sur ce banc tous deux seuls. D’un long moment, ô mon amie, vous n’oserez. Que vous me serez douce et que je tremblerai.

We will love each other so much that our words will be silent, as we hold hands when meeting again. You will be shaded by ancient branches on the bank where I know we shall sit. So we shall sit on this bank the two of us alone For a long time, oh my friend, you will not dare, How sweet you will be with me and I shall tremble.

No. 8. Vous m’avez regardé avec toute votre âme

You Have Looked at Me with All Your Soul

Vous m’avez regardé avec toute votre âme. Vous m’avez regardé longtemps comme un ciel bleu. J’ai mis votre regard à l’ombre de mes yeux Que ce regard était passionné et calme.

You have watched me with all your soul. For a long time you have looked at me like a blue sky. I have put your glance in the shadow of my eyes It was passionate… and calm

No. 9. Les lilas qui avaient fleuri

The Lilacs which had flowered

Les lilas qui avaient fleuri l’année dernière vont fleurir de nouveau dans les tristes parterres. Déjà le pêcher grêle a jonché le ciel bleu de ses roses, comme un enfant la Fête-Dieu. Mon cœur devrait mourir au milieu de ces choses car c’était au milieu des vergers blancs et roses que j’avais espéré je ne sais quoi de vous. Mon âme rêve sourdement sur vos genoux. Ne la repoussez point. Ne la relevez pas de peur qu’en s’éloignant de vous elle ne voie combien vous êtes faible et troublée dans ses bras.

The lilacs that bloomed last year will bloom once again in the melancholy flowerbeds. The spindly peach tree has already sprinkled the blue sky with its roses like a child on corpus Christi day. My heart should die in the midst of these things. For it was in the midst of white and pink orchards that I had hoped for. . . I don’t know what . . . from you. My soul dreams silently on your lap. Do not push it away. Do not awaken it for fear that in drawing away from you, it will see how weak and troubled you are in its arms.

Translation by Edward M. Anderson

Translation by Edward M. Anderson

Translation by D.Williamson

Paolo Tosti (1846-1916): “Marechiare” While the history of Neapolitan song stretches back centuries, many view the festival of Piedigrotta, begun in the 1830s, as the birthplace of the modern canzone napoletana. This is a genre very much of the people: the subjects of these songs are often everyday situations (in the same vein as verismo opera) and, as the name suggests, they are written in Neapolitan, a language similar to--yet distinct from--Italian. Tosti’s music gives primacy to the voice: the simple accompaniment and repetitive, catchy melody gave festival singers opportunity to show off, and allowed festival goers to easily take the songs far beyond Naples, giving “Marechiare” and other canzoni lives of their own.

Marechiare

Marechiaro

Quanno sponta la luna a Marechiare pure li pisce nce fann’ a l’ammore, se revotano l’onne de lu mare, pe la priezza cagneno culore quanno sponta la luna a Marechiare.

When the moon rises over (the city of) Marechiaro, even the fish are making love. The waves of the sea revolt changing color from joy] When the moon rises over Marechiaro,

A Marechiare nce sta na fenesta, pe’ la passione mia nce tuzzulea, nu carofano adora int’a na testa, passa l’acqua pe sotto e murmuléa, A Marechiare nce sta na fenesta A Marechiare, a Marechiare, nce sta na fenesta.

In Marechiaro, there is a window. My passion knocks on it. A fragrant carnation in a vase, with murmuring waters passing beneath. In Marechiaro, there is a balcony.

Text by Salvatore Di Giacomo (1860 -1934)

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976): “The Children and Sir Nameless” This ballad by Thomas Hardy tells of the pompous Sir Nameless, whose decision to immortalize himself in statue form rather than fathering children hilariously backfires. An irreverent take on the cruel, sometimes humorous ironies of fate, Britten’s blustery music further cuts the eponymous knight down to size. These wretched children romping in my park Trample the herbage till the soil is bared, And yap and yell from early morn till dark! Go keep them harnessed to their set routines: Thank God I’ve none to hasten my decay; For green remembrance there are better means Than offspring, who but wish their sires away.” Sir Nameless of that mansion said anon: “To be perpetuate for my mightiness Sculpture must image me when I am gone.” - He forthwith summoned carvers there express To shape a figure stretching seven-odd feet (For he was tall) in alabaster stone,

With shield, and crest, and casque, and word complete: When done a statelier work was never known. Three hundred years hied; Church-restorers came, And, no one of his lineage being traced, They thought an effigy so large in frame Best fitted for the floor. There it was placed, Under the seats for schoolchildren. And they Kicked out his name, and hobnailed off his nose; And, as they yawn through sermon-time, they say, “Who was this old stone man beneath our toes?

“The Last Rose of Summer” Thomas Moore’s popular poem and melody have been translated into numerous languages and set by many great composers including Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Glinka, and Gounod. Britten leaves the original melody mostly untouched, opting instead to add quasi-baroque ornamentation and a subtly-dissonant, harp-like accompaniment. Britten’s setting shows a preternatural ability to turn the old and well-worn into something new, exciting, and slightly off-kilter, even while using centuries-old idioms. ‘Tis the last rose of summer, Left blooming alone; All her lovely companions Are faded and gone; No flower of her kindred, No rosebud is nigh, To reflect back her blushes, Or give sigh for sigh. I’ll not leave thee, thou lone one! To pine on the stem; Since the lovely are sleeping, Go, sleep thou with them.

Thus kindly I scatter, Thy leaves o’er the bed, Where thy mates of the garden Lie scentless and dead. So soon may I follow, When friendships decay, And from Love’s shining circle The gems drop away. When true hearts lie withered, And fond ones are flown, Oh! who would inhabit This bleak world alone?

“The Choirmaster’s Burial,” from Winter Words Britten found this text in a copy of Hardy’s Collected Poems given to him and his partner, tenor Peter Pears, by the author Christopher Isherwood. Here we again see Britten mixing idioms from very different stylistic periods: the lilting, Purcelling ornamentation and the harmonization of the hymn-tune “Mount Ephraim” transport the listener across more than two centuries of sonic landscapes. Though the following set of songs are all distinctly American--American texts set by American composers--a connection to Paris, France links them all. John Gruen, born in the northern suburbs of Paris, fled Europe with his family to escape fascism. Chanler, on the other hand, went to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger, while Rorem, “always attracted by things French… already French at home in Chicago,” would gain notoriety with his scandalous Paris Diary. Like Chanler and so many other American composers, Lowell Liebermann shares a direct musical lineage to Paris and Nadia Boulanger through one of his teachers, the late David Diamond. He often would ask us That, when he died, After playing so many To their last rest, If out of us any Should here abide, And it would not task us, We would with our lutes Play over him By his grave-brim The psalm he liked best The one whose sense suits “Mount Ephraim” And perhaps we should seem To him, in Death’s dream, Like the seraphim.

As soon as I knew That his spirit was gone I thought this his due, And spoke thereupon. “I think,” said the vicar, “A read service quicker Than viols out-of-doors In these frosts and hoars. That old-fashioned way Requires a fine day, And it seems to me It had better not be.” Hence, that afternoon, Though never knew he That his wish could not be, To get through it faster

They buried the master Without any tune. But ‘twas said that, when At the dead of next night The vicar looked out, There struck on his ken Thronged roundabout, Where the frost was graying The headstoned grass, A band all in white Like the saints in church-glass, Singing and playing The ancient stave By the choirmaster’s grave. Such the tenor man told When he had grown old.

John Gruen (1926-2016): Selections from Three by E. E. Cummings Critic, photographer, composer, and biographer, modern-day Renaissance man John Gruen’s work spanned multiple genres and seven decades. Though an accomplished composer in his twenties, he soon discovered “there were few opportunities in America for a composer who specialized solely in art song.” Fortunately, those pieces have become a small yet significant part of the American recital repertoire. The interplay of text and music in these songs evinces a clear artistic affinity between composer and poet. Light, bouncy, and humorously erratic, “Spring is like a perhaps hand” shows both artists delighting in the joys of language. Cummings, himself an amateur pianist and composer, understood well the power of rhythm and syntax, and how to effectively distort and reshape them. “Lady will you come with me into” is equally playful and off-kilter; here, Gruen renders Cummings’ hard stops and ends of phrases as cheeky pauses. The descending interval of a minor third that opens and closes the song calls to mind a child’s schoolyard taunt; the final phrase, truncated, ends like a joke waiting for the punchline.

Texts from ‘Three’ by E.E Cummings (1894 – 1962) III - Spring is Like a Perhaps Hand

II - Lady will you come with me into

Spring is like a perhaps hand (which comes carefully out of Nowhere) arranging a window, into which people look(while people stare arranging and changing placing carefully there a strange thing and a known thing here) and

Lady will you come with me into the extremely little house of my mind. Clocks strike. The

changing everything carefully spring is like a perhaps Hand in a window (carefully to and fro moving New and Old things ,while people stare carefully moving a perhaps fraction of flower here placing an inch of air there) and

moon’s round,through the window as you see and really i have no servants. We could almost live at the top of these stairs, there’s a free room. We almost could go(you and i) into a together whitely big there is but if so or so slowly I opened the window a most thinyness, the moon(with white wig and polished buttons) would take you away --and all the clocks would run down the next day.

without breaking anything.

Lowell Liebermann (b. 1961): “The Arrow and the Song,” from Six Songs on Poems of Henry W. Longfellow In this setting of a simple yet poignant Longfellow poem, a hurried stream of notes on the piano surround the voice, which moves in a direct, declamatory style. The busy, fast-moving accompaniment depicts both the swift arrow and flying song while still letting the text, a rumination on the power of music, shine through. I shot an arrow into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where; For, so swiftly it flew, the sight Could not follow it in its flight. I breathed a song into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where;

For who has sight so keen and strong, That it can follow the flight of song? Long, long afterward, in an oak I found the arrow, still unbroke; And the song, from beginning to end, I found again in the heart of a friend.

Theodore Chanler (1902-1961): “I Rise When You Enter” While less known than his contemporaries, fellow American composer Virgil Thomson wrote that Chanler’s songs, “though few in number, are probably the best we have.” Of the fifty or so songs in his oeuvre, many of the texts were supplied by Leonard Feeney, a Jesuit priest and friend of Chanler’s. Theirs was an unusual collaboration, with Feeney sometimes supplying texts to music Chanler had already written. The relationship between the men would become strained, as Feeney’s radical views (Feeney would later be excommunicated for roughly twenty years) alienated the mild-mannered Chanler, but not before producing songs such as this one, a buoyant piece brimming with madcap optimism. You are so wonderful, what shall I do? I rise when you enter. Of attraction I tell you, if anything’s true. You’re the absolute center. I take off my hat when I ride with you down on the lift From the seventeenth floor to the fifth, to the ground; Through the circular door I revolve you around; We go out in the moonlight, the mist, or the rain, And I give you my arm to accept, and I love you again.

You are so wonderful, what shall I say? Shall I tell you a story of a knight and a maid and the old fashioned way He would fight for her glory? No, we’re not the people for such enterprise You’re just one of those gals, I’m just one of those guys; But anyhow notice whenever you enter, I rise.

Ned Rorem (b. 1923): “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” Robert Frost called this poem, one of his most famous, his “best bid for remembrance.” Ned Rorem’s aim for the work would be less grandiose: written while he was a student at Juilliard, this short song bears the dedication “for my father.” The unostentatious, reflective music complements but never overpowers, wisely letting Frost’s immortal words remain at the forefront. Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow.

He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound’s the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake.

My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

Eden Ahbez (1908-1995): “Nature Boy” When eden ahbez (born George Alexander Aberle), a self-described “Nature Boy” and forerunner of the hippie movement, handed a copy of his song to Nat King Cole’s manager Mort Ruby in 1947, he was a little-known pianist living beneath the first “L” of the Hollywood Sign (so legend goes). A year later, Cole’s team tracked ahbez down to buy the rights to the song. Though abhez had stolen the tune from a Yiddish musical (they ultimately settled out of court), he sold the rights to “Nature Boy” for $10,000. The song, which tells of a “strange, enchanted boy” and his entreatment to love, is mournful and plaintive, as if told from the perspective of one who had heard the boy’s message too little too late. There was a boy, A very strange enchanted boy; They say he wandered very far, very far Over land and sea A little shy and sad of eye, But very wise was he.

And then one day, One summer day, he passed my way And as we spoke of many things, Fools and kings This he said to me: “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn Is just to love and be loved in return”.

Harold Arlen (1905-1986): “One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)” A long, meandering “tapeworm” in Tin Pan Alley parlance, this tale of a down-on-his-luck barfly became a hit for many of the greatest singers of the twentieth century, including Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Tony Bennett. For Frank Sinatra, it became one of his most enduring “saloon songs;” he recorded the song for six different albums over the course of five decades. Text by Johnny Mercer (1909 – 1976) It’s quarter to three, there’s no one in the place except you and me So set ‘em up Joe, I’ve got a little story you oughta know We’re drinking my friend to the end of a brief episode Make it one for my baby and one more for the road I got the routine, so drop another nickel in the machine I’m feeling so bad, I wish you’d make the music dreamy and sad Could tell you a lot but that’s not in a gentleman’s code Just make it one for my baby and one more for the road

You’d never know it but buddy I’m a kind of poet And I’ve got a lot of things to say And when I’m gloomy, you simply got to listen to me Until it’s talked away Well that’s how it goes and Joe I know you’re gettin’ anxious to close So thanks for the beer, I hope you didn’t mind my bending your ear Don’t let it be said that little Freddie can’t carry his load Just make it one for my baby and one more for the road That long, long road, that long, long road

Ray Charles (1930-2004): “Hallelujah, I Love Her So” As 1955 was drawing to a close, Ray Charles was discovering his first taste of mainstream recognition, including the first in a string of notorious run-ins with the police. Prior to a performance in Philadelphia one week before Thanksgiving, a dispute with a fiery DJ over a dressing room led the DJ to call the police, who informed them that Charles and his band were using drugs. The group were promptly arrested (headlines read “NABBED IN DOPE RAID”); while Charles was able to post bail, the band spent a week behind bars. A relatively minor scandal, it was soon forgotten with the release of more crowd-pleasing hits like “Hallelujah,” a raucous fusion of gospel and blues, sacred and profane. Let me tell you ‘bout a girl I know She is my baby, and he she lives next door Every morning ‘fore the sun comes up She brings my coffee in my favorite cup

She kisses me and she hold me tight And tell me, “Daddy everything’s all right” That’s why I know, yes, I know Hallelujah, I just love her so

That’s why I know, yes, I know Hallelujah, I just love her so When I’m in trouble and I have no friends I know she’ll go with me until the end

Now if I call her on the telephone And tell her that I’m all alone By the time I count from one to four I hear her on my door

Everybody asks me, “How I know?” I smile at them and say she told me so That’s why I know, oh, I know Hallelujah, I just love her so

In the evening when the sun goes down When there is nobody else around She kisses me and she hold me tight And tell me, “Daddy everything’s all right” That’s why I know, yes, I know Hallelujah, I just love her so

Now if I call her on the telephone And tell her that I’m all alone By the time I count from one to four I hear her on my door In the evening when the sun goes down When there is nobody else around

Oh, Hallelujah don’t you know I just love her so She is my little woman Way all down Baby