You love words, you’ve got to love lyrics. And 1930s to ’50s jazz lyrics float my boat more than most. Here are some of the best, from You Go To My Head, penned by the mighty Haven Gillespie and J. Fred Coots back in 1938.
It’s awesome stuff, and a brilliant example of plain language used to its most powerful effect. Have a read of this. And listen to the Billie Holiday version of the tune on YouTube if you fancy a treat. It’s the best of the bunch.
You go to my head
You go to my head
And you linger like a haunting refrain
And I find you spinning ’round in my brain
Like the bubbles in a glass of champagne
You go to my head
Like a sip of sparkling Burgundy brew
And I find the very mention of you
Like the kicker in a julep or two
The thrill of the thought
That you might give a thought to my plea
Cast a spell over me
Still I say to myself get a hold of yourself
Can’t you see that it never can be
You go to my head
With a smile that makes my temperature rise
Like a summer with a thousand Julys
You intoxicate my soul with your eyes
Though I’m certain that this heart of mine
Hasn’t a ghost of a chance in this crazy romance
You go to my head
Whoops… copywriting fail!
Many thanks to Sing365 for the lyrics.
I’ve nofollowed the Sing365 link. How come? Because I spotted some scary copy on the site, which I don’t want to link to just in case Google decides to take a dislike to it and devalues the site, which could in turn affect my own rankings. To make it clear I didn’t write it, I’ve marked it up as a <blockquote>.
Mentioning the key term ‘lyrics’ six times in the following paragraph is poor SEO practice. It’s badly written too, and I suspect it has been spun.
Sorry folks. Your site is brilliant. But this is nasty:
These lyrics reveal with what sophistication and insight into the human condition that lyrics used to be written as opposed to the lyrics of today which are a race to the bottom covering the most basest of human emotion. These lyrics challenge our understanding of ourselves whereas todays lyrics reinforce simple cliches of pseudo celebrity fantasies that we take on as identity. These deep lyrics over chords which exude mood not found in todays repetitive robotic chord progressions make this a superb example of what song writing can be.
