StarDust

     Recalling being awakened once in the middle of the night by the beautiful Nat Cole recording of StarDust, my neighbor, Joe, asked if I could do it as a weekly tune.

     Written in 1929 by Hoagy Carmichael, with lyrics by Mitchell Parrish, StarDust may be the single most recorded American standard and its popularity is well earned.  It boasts one of the great opening verses in the genre, then a beautiful refrain, nice chords throughout and beautifully wistful lyrics by Parrish (who in a similarly lush vein, wrote the lyrics to Deep Purple).  There was nothing wrong with this in 1929 and there still isn’t.  Interestingly, the lyrics have none of the irony typical of American standards.  They are unapologetically and poignantly poetic ("you wander down a lane and far away, leaving me a love that cannot die") but if you’re in the right sort of mood, they still work.

     This is not the sort of song I can pull off vocally, so I asked my friend Anne Robinson Frey to join me again. (You can also hear her on In The Wee Small Hours of the Morning).  In the manner of the arranger for the Nat Cole version (I apologize for not having the name handy, especially as arrangers get too little credit as it is) I was thinking strings.  I have heard that Carmichael’s verse was inspired by Bix Beiderbecke’s trumpet playing so I added some trumpet too.  After that, there didn’t seem any place to fit a piano in or any reason to do so.  Click on the red title below to hear it.  The lyrics are below. (If you’d like to “suscribe”, i.e. to have me e-mail you weekly tunes as they appear, please e-mail via the contact page and simply put “Weekly Tune” in the subject.

 StarDust

Verse:

And now the purple dusk of twilight time

Steals across the meadows of my heart

Now the little stars, the little stars pine

Always reminding me that we’re apart

You wander down the lane and far away

Leaving me a love that cannot die

Love is now the stardust of yesterday

The music of the years gone by.

Sometimes I wonder why I spend the lonely nights

Dreaming of a song

The melody haunts my reverie

And I am once again with you

When our love was new

And each kiss an inspiration

Ah, but that was long ago

 Now my consolation

Is in the stardust of a song

Beside a garden wall where stars are bright

You are in my arms

That nightingale tells its fairy tale

Of paradise where roses grew

Though I dream in vain

Always in my heart it will remain

My stardust melody

The memory of loves refrain.