In Oscar Hammerstein II’s original, the verse to refrain transition looks like this:
You went away, I let you,
We broke the ties that bind;
I wanted to forget you
And leave the past behind.
Still, the magic of the night I met you
Seems to stay forever in my mind.
The sky was blue,
And high above
The moon was new,
And so was love.
This eager heart of mine was singing:
“Lover, where can you be?”
This is what Amel Brahim-Djelloul sings at first. But in repeating the beginning of the song she sings:
You went away, I let you,
We broke the ties that bind;
I wanted to forget you
And leave the past behind.
Still, the magic of the night I met you
Seems to stay forever in my mind.
The sky is blue,
The night is cold,
The moon is new,
But love is old,
And while this heart of mine is singing:
“Lover, come back to me!”
I call this a version of Stanza 4 because Hammerstein’s original Stanza 4 ends differently - in a way that is grammatical:
And while I’m waiting here
This heart of mine is singing:
“Lover, come back to me!”
I think it is possible that a lot of thought went into this recording's surprising departures from traditional practice – certainly the performance sounds carefully thought through. Presumably the artists were seeking a way of disrupting the smooth linearity of the original, one that accords with the musical disruption of the jazz intervention. Even so I am inclined to think that in this case the loss of lyrical coherence – no matter how carefully the departure from the original may have been thought out – is unfortunate.
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