It's our last week in the office, and the Festering Season is in full swing - we're off to see Follies at the National Theatre tonight, there's another Xmas get-together with former work colleagues tomorrow, and one cannot escape Mariah-fucking-Carey wherever one goes.
However, we waved a sad farewell to another of our fabled Patron Saints on the weekend, the effervescent Miss Keely Smith. So, on this Tacky Music Monday, it is to the great lady herself we turn (with then-husband Louis Prima of course) to get our juices flowing and out into the darkness...
That old black magic has me in its spell
That old black magic that you weave so well
Those icy fingers up and down my spine
The same old witchcraft when your eyes meet mine
The same old tingle that I feel inside
And then that elevator starts its ride
And down and down I go, round and round I go
Like a leaf that's caught in the tide
I should stay away but what can I do?
I hear your name and I'm aflame
Aflame with such a burning desire
That only your kiss can put out the fire
'Cause you are the lover I have waited for
The mate that fate had me created for
And every time your lips meet mine
Darling, down and down I go, round and round I go
In a spin, loving the spin that I'm in
Under that old black magic called love
Have a swinging week, dear reader!
RIP Keely Smith (born Dorothy Jacqueline Keely, 9th March 1928 – 16th December 2017)
Saw the same "Follies" you're about to see live last
ReplyDeleteSunday at a local movie theatre. It was phenomenal.
It was an utter joy! (More of all that later, no doubt.) Jx
DeleteOh dear. I've been very fond of Keely for a long while; I think she is an element iof that taste for rediscovered gems that defined my generation of poofs. And I love broad who can belt out with power and at the same time, complete control.
ReplyDeleteAnd god love her, sharing the stage with Prima all those years must have been trying, at least at times. There were several points in this video where she looked like there several other places she'd rather be. Still, she was a great addition to an otherwise gray musical period.
Louis "divorced his third wife Tracelene" [lovely name] for Keely, but it couldn't have been easy for her with two kids, the constant performing, and his inability to keep "it" in his trousers. The "deadpan" exasperated Keely on stage was, by all accounts however, just an act. And she carried on performing to the end, which shows what a trouper she really was! We'll miss her. Jx
DeleteI was surprised by how little coverage was given over here (that I saw, anyway) to her passing.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately we live in an age so utterly obsessed with the "now", the trivial and the "if it's not on social media, it does not exist" mentality that it's all too often the truly talented people, their lives and deaths, that get completely overlooked. The world (unfortunately) is in the hands of children, and the merely childish. Jx
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