Here comes Spring, thank the Lord! What a winter! This was a doozy; it left everyone at their wits’ end. My daughter wore a sleeping bag coat for 6 months...and of course I gifted her with my famous “HotHead” hat, guaranteed to keep your head warm even in minus-degree weather; (www.thehatshopnyc.com, although I don’t think they make them anymore). Speaking from my perch as all-seeing, all-knowing, and AAD, (Also A Doctor) if your head is warm, you will stay healthy...that’s why everyone wore nightcaps in the old days, and as I sometimes do even to this day. (I know, it’s quite a picture, right?)

But with Spring finally just around the corner, my thoughts turn to music, one of the best, best, best things in life, and one of the few things that continues to uplift.

The album we will discuss this season is Some People’s Lives, made in 1990, and another happy collaboration between me, Arif Mardin, and Marc Shaiman. The moving “From a Distance” became a surprise hit for us, but I shouldn’t have been surprised. In retrospect, it captured a kind of longing for peace that had not been expressed musically in a long time. It’s a great, great song, universal in its longing and tone. Whether it’s sung with a huge orchestra, or just a guitar, and I have sung it all these years in every configuration possible; it still brings down the house, not because of the way I sing it, but because it’s what everyone wishes for. Daily.

A song that has a special feeling for me on this album is “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most,” a ballad by Fran Landesman and Tommy Wolfe from a show called “The Nervous Set”, which had a small success off-Broadway in the 50”s. Of course, it became a jazz classic in the hands of Anita O’Day, one of those remarkable singers of the day; and my fascination with those neurotic times (think Mad Men, the Beats, and the Bomb) continues to this day. Just think, it was only 10-15 years after WWII ended; can you believe it? No wonder people were neurotic! I was just a kid in those days, and the world was brand new to me, but when I think about it now, what people of my parents’ generation had to absorb is unbelievable; the Depression, the War, the Holocaust, Reds under the Beds...I don’t know how they kept it together.

Marc Shaiman contributed a beautiful arrangement of “He Was Too Good to Me” paired with “Since You Stayed Here”, by Rubens and Larsen, which I could never get through without breaking down…Jude Johnstone contributed “The Girl is on to You” and Janis Ian gave me one of my favorite songs of all time, the title track, “Some People’s Lives” which, in a lyrical feat, manages to be so sad, yet hopeful at the same time.

Some people’s lives,

run down like clocks,

one day they stop,

and that’s all they’ve got

Some lives wear out

Like old tennis shoes

no one can use

well, it’s sad, but it’s true

Didn’t anybody tell them

Didn’t anybody see?

Didn’t anybody love them?

Like you love me?

I always think of my husband, the Baron, whenever I sing it.

“Moonlight Dancing” provides a soundtrack for those outdoor cocktail parties you’ve been planning since you’ve been in hibernation, and “All of a Sudden” sort of feels like a throwback to the New Wave 80’s, late, as I usually am, since this album came out in 1990! So get out your crinolines and skinny ties and pour yourself a Long Island Iced Tea...et voila!

As you can probably tell, I really liked this album; the songs, the arrangements, and let’s discuss that cover photo! We shot it on one of the most beautiful days I can remember in LA, and the picture was taken at sunset, at what we call “magic hour”. I hope you play these songs at sunset, love them, and have many, many magic hours of your own...Here’s to Spring!