It's Easy To Remember (Lorenz Hart/ Richard Rodgers)
Your sweet expression, the smile you gave me
The way you looked when we met
It's easy to remember, but so hard to forget.
I hear you whisper, I'll always love you
I know it's over and yet
It's easy to remember, but so hard to forget.
So I must dream to have your hands caress me,
Fingers press me tight,
I'd rather dream than have that lonely feeling
Stealing through the night.
Each little moment is clear before me,
And though it brings me regret,
It's easy to remember, and so hard to forget.
--- to
Japanese page
It was more than ten years ago when I read the original screenplay of Raymond Chandler, "The Blue Dahlia" (1946, Oscar nominee as an original screenplay).
But it was very recently when I saw the film itself at last on TV.
I remember that there hadn't been noted this song in the book, though,
in the film, an unknown singer(actress) sings for ten or more bars of the song.
The story begins like this:
When Alan Ladd comes home in LA from the US Air Force, he finds his wife belonging to the other man. So he leaves his home.
In the rainy night, when he walks on looking for the settlement, a girl reaches him by a car to let him get on her car.
She is Veronica Lake.
Lake is just coming out from the criminal-like husband and looks so honest and straight.
Next morning, his wife is found dead in her house.
As he remembers that he left his gun there and more, he recognizes he might be a suspect, and decides to escape the place.
At this time, Lake helps him again. She knows that her husband is the boyfriend of Ladd's wife and very suspicious. A club that this suspicious man owns is named "The Blue Dahlia".
The song is sung at the club "Blue Dahlia", very literally, after the middle of the film.
The song was not so meaningful for the film,
but the song is such a pretty one with full of romantic moods.
In a 1935's film, "Mississippi", Bing Crosby had sung it.
The song is sung often in the jazz scenes.
Billie Holiday sings on "Lady in Satin"(58).
Sarah Vaughan sings in a album for Rodgers/Hart. (54)
Shirley Horn gigs it very thoughtful and emotional. (92)
Karrin Allyson sings John Coltrane. (2001)
Coltrane weeps on "Ballads"(62).
Phineas Newborn gigs by trio.
Pharoah Sanders does it by quintet. Live in 81.
Perry Como is a gentle barber always.
Dean Martin sings with such tender feelings.
Johnny Hartman also sings sweetly.
Mel Torme does it so modestly.
Ian Shaw sings with the verse. This album, "Echo of a Song"(96) is excellent. He was at his 32.
Sep. 3 is birthday of Alan Ladd.
He was born in Hot Spring, Arkansas, 1913.
He passed away in Palm Spring on Jan. 29, 1964.
His profile is here; copied from the brilliant site.
Alan Ladd had been working in studio in Hollywood, when he got a small role of Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane"(1941). And he got a big break after he stared "This Gun For Hire" with Veronica Lake, portraying a lonely and cool and cold-hearted hit man. His popularity in Japan was reached at the peak circa 10 years later when he stared a western "Shane"(George Stevens: 1953).
As Alan Ladd was shorter(5'6") among the American-males, he was suited with a small-statured beauty Veronica Lake(5'2") for the best couple. When shooting, he needed a stand to get on, which made him look taller than the opposite-starlets who were almost higher than him. Those days in Hollywood, to use this kind of a stand had been called "do Sessue" at the studio. Sessue Hayakawa was the name of a Japanese actor in Hollywood of the silent era, who was shorter as a star and also needed this stand to look him higher. (In Japan, they're still using the word "do Sessue" now-a-days.) After Ladd had become a big star, it was said that they began calling to use a stand to make higher "do Alan Ladd."
In "The Blue Dahlia", brunette Doris Dowling who played as his wife was round one head taller than he. She acted a bad betraying wife who was not abashed with the fact she had killed her child with drunken driving. She was so right to be that unbalanced bigger for the role of a bad woman (rather to say bad wife). . .
(pasted from fine Japanese site, Columns de Ko-ichi Yamada: "The Beauty and The Beast": loosely interpreted by TK; linkaged by TK)
Do not confuse Ladd with ladder.
The word 'ladder' didn't come from him.
Sinatra recorded the song just once.
11/01/56 Arr: Nelson Riddle
With: The Hollywood String Quartet
"Capitol Years"
and
"Close To You"
(TK, 09/03/05)
P.S.
The verse is here:
With you I owned the earth
With you I ruled creation
No you, and what's it worth?
It's just an imitation
* The front was naturally, Veronica Lake.
Go to ---------- Another Song --- here to Japanese
Go to the page of Contents
* Any errors, omissions or comments would be greatly appreciated. Please mail any to Taro Kimura ( artanisrome@yahoo.co.jp ).
