This Cold War With You (1949)

Tillman 

So let's do right

or let's just say we're through

I just can't stand another

cold, cold war with you

Country legend Floyd Tillman wrote and recorded this song first in 1949, pretty much in the middle of the Cold War between the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. Because this stand-off between two power countries so resembles the power struggles that can be seen in a couple's personal relationship, many artists have performed it since then. I first heard John Prine's version in the early '80s. This song is just one of many songs related to the Atomic Age and the foreboding that started then about the fate of the world... it's a foreboding that has never really left us, frankly. And relationships continue to have their stand-offs as well. On that cheery note, don't forget to give a big hug to those you love.

The sun goes down and leaves me sad and blue

The iron curtain falls on this cold war with you

Though you won't speak and I won't speak that's true

Two stubborn people with a cold war to go through

Oh why oh why should love ever come to couples like you and me

Whose cold cold wars are never done

And whose hearts just can't be free

Oh let's do right or let's just say we're through

I just can't stand another cold cold war with you

Love is like a cigarette

Jerome/Kent

Then just like a cigarette 

Love seem to fade away
and leave behind ashes of regret...

Ivie Anderson deserves to be better known. One of Duke Ellington's earliest vocalists - and his first full time "girl" singer - her delivery is straightforward and swinging, not a scat to be heard. Love is like a cigarette conjures up a smoky time in the past when cigarettes evoked romance, moodiness, excitement. (Actually, they still have a tinge of glamour about them.) Think of Paul Henreid and Bette Davis in Now, Voyager - where would they have been without cigarettes? Sadly, Ivie suffered from severe asthma her entire life, and both her career and her life were cut short by this breathing disease. Here is she is singing with Ellington in a rare film clip singing I've Got it Bad and That Ain't Good.

VERSE

What is love? You called it heaven above 

Star that shine in the night 

A bird that sings in its flight 

A flower that blooms in the spring 

There's no such thing 

CHORUS

Love is like a cigarette 

You know you had my heart aglow 

Between your fingertips 

And just like a cigarette 

I never knew the thrill of life 

Until you touched my lips 

Then just like a cigarette 

Love seem to fade away and leave behind ashes of regret 

And with a flick of your fingertips 

It was easy for you to forget 

Cause love is like a cigarette 

Then just like a cigarette 

Love seem to fade away and leave behind ashes of regret 

And with a flick of your fingertips 

It was easy for you to forget 

Cause love is like a cigarette

Lush Life (1938)

Strayhorn

"So I'll live a lush life in some small dive

And there I'll be, while I rot with the rest

Of those whose lives are lonely too"

Billy Strayhorn. His name can't be brought up without mentioning that of Duke Ellington: the two were bound together in work and life. Ellington "kept" Billy, in an apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, blocks from his own. Billy was gay, shy and desperately unhappy; Ellington was his opposite. This is a one of the saddest and most difficult songs to sing or play. Strayhorn wrote the song while still a teenager and it remains elusive to the most seasoned interpreters. Frank Sinatra tried and never came up with something he liked.  Ella Fitzgerald (accompanied by Duke Ellington),  Johnny Hartman, and John Coltrane (without the lyrics) all have versions. Yet the lyrics are especially important in this song: they stand on their own as poetry.  And here is Billy, doing it himself (as well as accompanying himself on piano.) I hope he found peace away from the "wheel of life."

I used to visit all the very gay places

Those come-what-may places

Where one relaxes on the axis of the wheel of life

To get the feel of life

From jazz and cocktails

The girls I knew had sad and sullen gray faces

With distingue traces

That used to be there

You could see where they'd been washed away

By too many through the day

Twelve-o'clock tails

Then you came along with your siren song

To tempt me to madness

I thought for awhile that your poignant smile

Was tinged with the sadness

Of a great love for me

Ah yes, I was wrong

Again, I was wrong

Life is lonely again

And only last year

Everything seemed so sure

Now life is awful again

A trough full of hearts could only be a bore

A week in Paris could ease the bite of it

All I care is to smile in spite of it

I'll forget you, I will
While yet you are still

Burning inside my brain

Romance is mush

Stifling those who strive

So I'll live a lush life in some small dive

And there I'll be, while I rot with the rest

Of those whose lives are lonely too