Pat Boone: When worst is 'best' (Oscar winning songs)
WorldNetDaily ^ | 4/8/06 | Pat Boone
I'm a singer. I hope you've noticed.
For 50 years now, I've made a nice living and enjoyed a wondrous life, singing. Making music. When I got my first break, made my first record, there was something new happening in music – they were calling it "rock and roll."
Actually, it was mostly rhythm and blues, or as many called it then, "race music." The fans of pop music, who made up the huge majority of listeners and buyers, liked well-crafted, melodic, catchy and memorable songs. A little section of New York City, called "Tin Pan Alley," housed hundreds of songwriters and some performers, all turning out popular music, and it became synonymous with American culture all over the world.
But this new stuff, this "race music" (so called because it was generated almost exclusively by black musicians, and known and liked mainly by a black audience) was, by comparison, ragged and simple and too primal to be confused with "Tin Pan Alley." It wasn't subtle or cute, mainly – it was honest and direct and more than a little sensual. It was repetitive and insistent and "un-slick." It seemed to have been almost made up on the spot, spontaneous and improvisational, and it was noisier and just more exciting than what the tunesmiths were turning out in the Brill Building, New York City.
I happened along right at that time, and my first records were "covers," pop versions of rhythm-and-blues songs that had already become hits in the R&B market, but weren't known yet to the much bigger "pop" audience. Elvis followed me about six months behind, also doing his versions of former R&B hits like "Hound Dog" and "That's Alright Mama" and "One Night With You" and a lot of others. My versions of "Ain't That a Shame" and "Tutti Frutti" and "I Almost Lost My Mind" rapidly became million sellers. And not just in the pop market, either – I had nine records in the R&B charts as well, indicating my acceptance as a legitimate rhythm-and-blues singer.
And we called it rock and roll.
But while this new music phenomenon swept across the world, also creating and enlarging a whole new image of American culture, the tunesmiths were working feverishly back in Tin Pan Alley. More than anybody, they saw what was happening, and they wanted to be in the middle of it. Writers like Carole King and Neil Diamond and Neil Sedaka, Lieber and Stoller, and Ellie Greenwich caught the spirit and beat, and added wonderful lyrics and very imaginative ideas to the excitement. It was still very much rock and roll, but more skillful and intelligent and varied in content. "Up on the Roof" and "Stand By Me," "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin," and "Spanish Harlem" come to mind, but there were hundreds more.
And inevitably, some of the new music found its way into the movies. But still, in America's entertainment monopoly – the world of cinema magic – good, elegant, beautiful music reigned supreme.
Each year, at the Oscars, the movie Academy handed out golden trophies to the very best we were capable of, in movies and music, and the world formed its opinions of who we were and what our fabled society was about.
I had the privilege of recording nominated songs, and even some winners, like "Friendly Persuasion," "Exodus," "April Love," "Days of Wine and Roses" and others. And while I was first known for rock and roll, it was clear to me that the gold standard, the class and quality and excellence of America's creativity was distilled in its popular music.
And each year, while the boiling industry of rock music flourished among the masses, especially the young, the Oscars were handed out to composers like Lerner and Lowe, Burt Bachrach, Dimitri Tiomkin, Alan and Marilyn Bergman, Ernest Gold, Leonard Bernstein and others who rank alongside Cole Porter and Sammy Cahn and Livingstone and Evans and Paul Francis Webster and Sammy Fain and Johnny Mercer and Henry Mancini.
Wonderfully, the world saw that the same culture that could produce "Tutti Frutti" also could serve up "Moon River" and "Evergreen" and "The Sound of Music," and we could discern the difference. While rock songs earned gold records, movie songs earned gold statues. And they said something good about America.
Well, it's 2006, and today's Academy has handed out its golden Oscar to a song it declared the best our movie composers could come up with, this year's statement to the rest of the world about who and what we are. I saw some of it performed on the Awards show, and I turned it off, aghast that it was even nominated and considered – and appalled when it was declared the winner.
My friend Nelson Sardelli, a singer himself, one of Las Vegas' best entertainers, sent me two lyrics samples to compare: one, the kind of enduring standard that reflected the best of our society, and the other, a portion of this year's acclaimed winner. You tell me what this says about our culture, and what the rest of the world should think about us.
From the Oscar winning song from 1936
"The Way You Look Tonight"
from "Swing Time" (1936)
Someday when I'm awfully low
When the world is cold
I will feel a glow
Just thinking of you
And the way you look tonight
Oh, but you're lovely
With your smile so warm
And your cheek so soft
There is nothing for me
But to love you
Just the way you look tonight
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From the Oscar winning song of 2006
"It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp"
from "Hustle and Flow" (2006)
You know it's hard out here for a pimp
When he tryin' to get this money for the rent
For the Cadillacs and gas money spent
Will have a whole lot of *itches talkin *hit
Will have a whole lot of *itches talkin *hit
Wait I got a snow bunny, and a black girl too
You pay the right price and they'll both do you
That's the way the game goes, gotta keep it strictly pimpin'
Gotta have my hustle tight, makin' change off these women, yeah
You know it's hard out here for a pimp
I'll spare you the rest – there's way too much more, and it doesn't get any better. "Hard Out Here For a Pimp" now takes its place beside "Moon River," "Over the Rainbow," and "White Christmas."
When the self-anointed of Hollywood decree that something of our all time worst is our forever-enshrined "best," should it not make us sad? |
