Season 388 - "Upstairs at Derek's - and Lynda's"

Season 388. Submission 1. "Love Letters" (Lyrics by Edward Heyman and music by Victor Young, 1945).

This song appeared as an instrumental in the movie of the same name, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1945. Famous covers include those by Ketty Lester (1961) and Elvis Presley (1966).

And, a magnificent release as a single by Alison Moyet in 1987 charted in six countries, including the UK where it rose as high as #4 and remained on the charts for 12 weeks. Here's a link to a fab performance by Alison: https://youtu.be/g6uATC-u9rw . (Elvis's recording is not too shabby either. ;) )


Thank you ever so much, Birdie and Del, for hosting and your terrific theme. I really look forward to hearing what everyone brings, as there's so so much fine music to choose from. (I'll spare you a cover of "Only You" [I've recorded it previously.], though it is one of my all-time faves.)

Baritone uke tuned up a bit here.


 
Good evening Seasonistas! Quality not quantity sums up the season so far. We’ve had some great contributions already, but I know many of you won’t be especially familiar with Vince’s and Alison’s work and may need some time to find something appropriate. The good news is that once you strip a lot of the songs on offer back to their component chords they shouldn’t take long to pick up. Some of the best and the catchiest pop songs are the simplest - songwriters like Vince Clarke and my co-host Lynda use insanely catchy vocal melodies over the top of relatively simple and repetitive chord progressions to create some fabulous music.

I wasn’t going to jump in quite so quickly with something this week but as it’s been a rather slow start here’s one that some of you might want to have a go at yourselves. It contains only 3 chords and perfectly illustrates the point I made about songwriting above. After leaving Yazoo, Vince briefly started a project called The Assembly - the idea being that he would work with different guest vocalists on his songs. To the best of my knowledge this collaboration with Feargal Sharkey was The Assembly’s only offering before Vince abandoned the project and went on to form Erasure with vocalist Andy Bell.

 
oh my goodness what a lovely thing to say! bless you for that!

and oh gosh how did i miss that 382 vid of yours! just had a listen and it's brill!

if anyone fancies a sing-along to get them in the mood for this season, here's that fab vid by 29moons




Thank you, Glad it got a few more views. Still working on this weeks.
 
Not going to lie- I squealed when I saw the theme title, scanned for the finer points, and then figured out how to play this my way. Now to go back and see what we are supposed to do, and wether or not I can play ten more. I really like Vince Clark.
 
TCK, that was a great bring of that wonderful song*! at LEAST ten more solid gold vince covers, please! :rock:


*and let's have another listen to it, as brought by the much loved and much missed ukey dave, back in 2013

 
TCK, that was a great bring of that wonderful song*! at LEAST ten more solid gold vince covers, please! :rock:


*and let's have another listen to it, as brought by the much loved and much missed ukey dave, back in 2013




Man...tears. Boy do I miss Davey. What a difference a Dave makes. Seems like I am the last one standing here...there once was four of us.
 
Another one :) sorry, I'm looking forward to listening to the other versions now.
The Flying Pickets did a fine a capella version of Only You back in 1983, it was the Christmas #1 in the UK if I remember correctly, well worth a listen if you're not familiar with it imo.
Busy week so this is probably the only one I'll get to do, did I just hear you sighing with relief Del.
 
This was recorded yesterday, on the last day of our little tour of Wales, before I saw that everybody else had jumped in and done it...But then, the campsite had no wifi, and my data allowance for the month was almost gone. Now I am back in the land of connectivity, so here is my addition to the teetering pile of "Only You"s



Hope to be back later in the week with something different.
 
Hello and good afternoon, Lynda and Del! Alison Moyet is going to be my saviour this week and I was intrigued to hear her version of "Bye Bye Blackbird", which I was intending to attempt. Then I came across the verses, which I had never heard before, and that turned the song back from something rather gloomy and introspective to the original "cheery" version. I am, all things considered, quite "cheery" as I went down to the Garage first thing this morning and had an oil change ... I feel FANTASTIC!!! (I dedicated this to Randy, because he likes the "oldies" and I miss him!)

 
Hello and good afternoon, Lynda and Del! Alison Moyet is going to be my saviour this week and I was intrigued to hear her version of "Bye Bye Blackbird", which I was intending to attempt. Then I came across the verses, which I had never heard before, and that turned the song back from something rather gloomy and introspective to the original "cheery" version. I am, all things considered, quite "cheery" as I went down to the Garage first thing this morning and had an oil change ... I feel FANTASTIC!!! (I dedicated this to Randy, because he likes the "oldies" and I miss him!)

I miss Randy too! Hope you're doing well Randy ~
 
Back for a second go, and a hit for Alison Moyet all of 32 years ago. Pleased to say I saw her a couple of years ago, still in superb voice.

 
Morning all! The pace is picking up nicely now - loving your work - thank you so much for your contributions and your support! It’s bloomin’ brilliant to hear your takes on some of my favourite songs ever - please don’t stop! :)
 
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