Paris. Tuileries. Paul Goldfinger photo. Click once to enlarge.
By Paul Goldfinger, Editor, Blogfinger.net
As a teenager I learned to love Broadway show tunes thanks to my mother who was a fine singer and she knew the score of every Broadway show.
“Till There Was You” was a favorite of mine—so beautiful and romantic.
The Beatles covered this song because Paul McCartney loved Peggy Lee’s version. Beatles fans usually are unaware of this Broadway ballad, but it was this song that got the Beatles their recording contract with EMI. McCartney sang the solo. Listen for the fine guitar solo by George Harrison.
THE BEATLES From The Music Man by Meredith Wilson (1961)
“Then there was music and wonderful roses
They tell me in sweet fragrant meadows
Of dawn and dew
They tell me in sweet fragrant meadows
Of dawn and dew
“There was love all around
But I never heard it singing
No, I never heard it at all
‘Til there was you.”
But I never heard it singing
No, I never heard it at all
‘Til there was you.”
I saw Music Man on Broadway starring Robert Preston so many years ago. I don’t think I was yet a teenager.
The big song I’d heard about before seeing the musical was “Seventy Six Trombones” and that was something sung by Preston’s powerful voice.
But, leaving the theater, walking into a noisy Manhattan afternoon, playgoers were humming “Till There Was You,” having listened to it sung by Broadway legend Barbara Cook in her sublime soprano voice.