One person’s view: “How did this sh*t ever get so popular? You see these albums everywhere but no one wants them.” – ottoshutoff @ Tapeheads.Net, inquiring as to the appeal of Ray Conniff
The public’s view: 2.57 / 5.00
I could write a long essay about “Somewhere, My Love”, but reading it would be almost as boring as listening to the song. Instead, I’m going to use most of this entry to tell you about a superior Ray Conniff record that I encountered in my childhood.
The story begins on a Christmas morning in that decade we like to call the 1970s. Santa Claus had been duly apprised of my need for a Kenner Close ‘n’ Play, a children’s phonograph that was frequently advertised during my Saturday morning cartoons. Judging by the TV commercials, a Close ‘n’ Play was the main ingredient of a happy life. Simply close the lid to play music and open it to stop. Hours of fun!
But there was no Close ‘n’ Play under the tree on that day. Instead, there was a note from Santa. This was highly unusual; lots of kids wrote letters to the old guy but this was the only time I heard of him writing back. The note informed me that Santa was unwilling to tarnish the North Pole’s strong brand by delivering low quality junk such as Close ‘n’ Plays. He had brought me a different record player which he believed was better. It was trickier to use than Kenner’s model, but Santa said that I was a big boy now and could handle it.
This was a clear breach of my contract with Santa. I had foregone many opportunities for mischief over the preceding months with the expectation that I would get a Close ‘n’ Play. But before I could grab the Yellow Pages and look for a lawyer, my parents told me that Mr. Claus was right. Kenner’s product might be a hot item at the moment, but this fad was doomed to oblivion in another 5 or 10 years. I wouldn’t impress any ladies in 1995 by inviting them to my apartment to hear the latest Neil Sedaka single on a Close ‘n’ Play. Modern, urbane men were expected to know how to operate a tone arm, so I might as well learn while young.
Santa gave me a couple of kids’ records along with the record player, and my parents soon augmented those with about three dozen 45s that they or other relatives had acquired. Some of these were older hit songs that, even at my tender age, I rightly recognized as quality material. B.J. Thomas’s “Hooked on a Feeling” was one of the best, as was the Coasters’ “Yakety Yak”. I also enjoyed Simon & Garfunkel’s “Cecilia”, though it was many years before I figured out why Paul Simon was so keen on washing his face. A few of the records had a more mysterious origin, as they didn’t seem like anything that would be voluntarily purchased. They had likely been distributed free in cereal boxes or given to my grandfather as promotional items at the store that he managed. The most curious of these singles was Ray Conniff’s “Begin the Beguine”.
This record was unlike the others. It had only a small spindle hole in the middle and was designed to be played at 33 1/3 RPM, despite being the same 7” diameter as the 45 RPM singles with the gaping centers. It was the musical arrangement, however, that made the record truly special.
The frenetic rumbling rhythm of Conniff’s “Begin the Beguine” sounds as though a cavalry brigade is stampeding past the listener on its way to a battle. After a few seconds of this, singers join in with berserk war cries of “Fi-yah! Fi-yah fi-yah!” Some of the members of the chorus prefer diplomacy to fighting, however. One of them calmly responds to the opposing horsemen with: “Bah dah bah doo dah. Bah dah doo dah.” It’s tough to argue with a reasonable proposal such as that. After a couple minutes of these negotiations, it seems as though war has been averted – but the lull is misleading. The horns grow louder and more urgent as the détente ends and the battle rages in a brief but dramatic finale. One of the horses releases a tremendous burst of flatulence, and it is over.
I didn’t fully appreciate how transformational Conniff’s arrangement was until I heard different versions of “Begin the Beguine” and learned the song’s history and original lyrics. It began life as a wistful Cole Porter composition about the memory of a romantic dance. Every other performer has treated it this way, as in the vocal renditions by Bing Crosby, Johnny Mathis, and Julio Iglesias and the well-known instrumental by Artie Shaw. Porter’s melody is pretty, to be sure, but it is ultimately just a mundane love ballad to be enjoyed a few times and then forgotten. Conniff creatively gave “Begin the Beguine” new life as the soundtrack for the human imagination, and it was on the agenda almost every time that my brother and I fired up the record player. Sometimes we played it at 45 RPM and pretended that the Ray Conniff Singers were high on amphetamines. I no longer envied the brats in the Close ‘n’ Play commercials, who spent much of their time playing a juvenile game of musical chairs while alternately lifting and closing the lid of their fad toy. I was now a serious audiophile.
Conniff knew that his reworking of “Begin the Beguine” was amazing. He produced several versions of it over the years, including one that used Cole Porter’s lyrics in place of some of the “bah dah bah doo dah” dialogue. “Somewhere, My Love” isn’t in the same league. Conniff and his chorus recorded this latter song for the film Doctor Zhivago, and it is perfectly fine within that context. If your spouse has dragged you to a theater to watch a three-hour-long romance set during the Bolshevik Revolution, “Somewhere, My Love” is not going to make your bad day any worse. It is, however, a run-of-the-mill easy listening song. I guess the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer people told Conniff that they wanted some of his music for their movie, but they didn’t want any of his ingenuity.
When it came to the singles charts, Conniff was a victim of what I call Cheap Trick Syndrome. Cheap Trick missed the top 40 with their beloved signature tune “Surrender”, only to later reach #1 with the forgettable ballad “The Flame”. Similarly, “Begin the Beguine” never found its way onto the Hot 100 despite its importance to Conniff’s legacy. It’s a travesty that the formulaic “Somewhere, My Love” was his only top 40 hit.
My rating: 4 / 10
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