I have been fascinated by this song since I learned that I was named after it. Her debut novel The Inland Sea is forthcoming. And yes 'straight' still meant sober at this time in America. I pictured a man in love with a married woman, one he was taken with but could not touch. 'Look at us but do not touch'. Art Bell played it a lot. "Phaedra" in Wikipedia: "In one version, Phaedra's nurse told Hippolytus of her love, and he swore he would not reveal her as a source of information. “One day the doorbell rings,” recalled Howard’s then-girlfriend, Genevieve McGuckin, “And it’s Lydia Lunch. His life as he knew it would end, possibly in a shotgun marriage if things went that far, if her father found out or if his family or friends, and possibly his employer, heard of him messing about with an under age girl he could lose his job or his esteem. I mean, the male voice so deep and masculine, and the girl voice so sweet and feminine are answering each other. Beware that ALL derogatory comments will be removed along with comments about other artiest covers and talk show host using it as bumper music. ", The sexual symbolism of the song speaks for itself, and pretty clearly at that. Also there is the drug imagery obviously woven in there, as the male cannot achieve the tantric muse lady without being high, but one day he wants to be sober and tell his new love about it, but he can never get there. It never received much airplay on KKIS or KFRC. (Older married woman is unattainable).I also suspect Phaedra is symbolic of forbidden love and of unattainable attraction, but it is reflected in the male's muse. I think this is someone who could have committed suicide via drugs or experienced an accidental overdose. [4], Every reviewer has their own take on the meaning of the song. I like this explanation also. The year had begun with San Francisco’s Human Be-In, where Timothy Leary had urged the crowds to “Turn on, tune in, drop out.” Peace. Some velvet mornin' when I'm straight and Slowdive just don't cut it. A force of energy will create a shift. However, this tragic character doesn't seem to fit with Hazelwood's depiction of Phaedra as a lusty nymph- perhaps, he's trying a new contemporary twist to the mythological lady? I mean no copyright infringement by the posting of pictures, videos, etc. I was a sophomore in high school when this song was released. When I grew up I learned to drink until I blacked out, to smoke until my lungs hurt. I'm glad I'm not the only one who always sits through that song wondering what the heck Hazlewood meant. “I am not the only one living under a life sentence of willing victimhood and abuse,” Lunch would say. I've always liked this song and thought its ambiguity is a great part of its appeal, letting listeners fill in their own details. And if Slowdive’s version sounds like the hushed-down buzz of a depressive episode, Primal Scream’s version, recorded in 2002 with Kate Moss taking the female vocals, sounds like the soundtrack to a glow stick-lit drug binge. That his tongue may also be loosened and he will for once and all finally speak about a forbidden thing, an affair he can't forget, with an underage girl 'how she made it in'. On a rooftop, by a swimming pool, atop a Spanish castle, and surrounded by motionless women sipping from goblets, Robie Porter smiles and sings news of RC’s “mad, mad, mad! Regardless, Trouble Is A Lonesome Town didn’t get Hazlewood very far. See if you can make heads or tails of it. This is a two-person song; and the narrator wearily and reluctantly dredges up the memory of a lost love, in a voice which is at once longing with sadness, but also tinged with a bitter bravado, possibly daring his friends to defy and deny him; while he is answered by the ghost of his long-lost, long-dead love, responding with a sing-song prayer that is light, and happy, and ethereal -- but a lyric that seems to hang lightly in the air, like the mist over a grave. Still love the song! Lives do change, and so do the songs that resonate with us, but it strikes me as strange that no matter how many versions of “Some Velvet Morning” I hear it is the oldest Hazlewood/Sinatra and Howard/Lunch versions that feel most vital to me. . Someday, he plans to get sober and open the "gate", which is some kind of resolution to the problem: moving on with a normal life, suicide, pursuing the woman of his dreams if he didn't have the nerve in the first place, etc. Any one ever wonder about straight/gay? But it was Rowland S. Howard’s version of “Some Velvet Morning” that I heard initially, not Hazlewood’s. . It's what I first thought of. Its very likely the beat like poetic nature of the song in connection with the Greek myth and the drug culture was a reflection of the authors knowledge to Beatnik poetry and these previous creative works. And at least you have the right 7.6% reading your blog :). Phaedra asks: “Where have I strayed from the highway of good sense?”. Straight: Not crooked, direct, undeviating, in unbroken sequence. I remember thinking that the male singer was going to open the "mental gate" that had prevented him from speaking about Phaedra. Anyhow, I am confused about one word in the song, I have seen it "How the made it in" not How she made it END, that's what I always thought it was and changes the song meaning a bit too. Some Velvet Morning impressed me due to Lee Hazelwood's voice and the notion that one day when he's "straight" things will be fantastic and he will realize his internal beauty and the things bothering him will fall by the wayside as most of the things we worry about are basically minor things that effect out pride and ego and if we just realize that they are meaningless and will have no bearing on reality we'd be happy. Technically murdered by his father, it is Phaedra, in the end, who is responsible for the death of Hippolytus. It was subsequently released as a single before appearing on the 1968 album, Nancy & Lee. Who is the longest reigning WWE Champion of all time? I was sent the song by my ex-girlfriend, shortly after we split, it's almost an elegy for our love, our relationship having lasted over half a decade. A British journalist said that "the puzzle of its lyrics and otherworldly beauty of its sound offering seemingly endless interpretations". It's like the myth of the faun and the nymphs, one always chasing the other, like men and women. Reading too much into it. The lyrics "how she have me life" and "how she made it end" sound like a huge crush. No luck at deciphering it? ), a spellbinding blend of contrasts. The female is personified as sweet and flowery and kind, while he is more bestial. If you're not familiar with the show, it's a great nightly radio show about the unexplained, aliens, the supernatural, etc. Although "Some Velvet Morning" is one of the more famous duets Hazlewood and Sinatra recorded together, it is considered a departure from their usual fare, as it is decidedly less influenced by country and western music. Hazlewood promises not the peaceful revolution of the future, but its failure. Of a person, well-conducted, steady. I wanted her to sing like a 16-year-old girl who screwed truck drivers.” After the success of his first singles, which helped position Sinatra as a wholesomely seductive face of1960s youth culture, the two recorded an album of duets, Nancy & Lee, in 1967. [3], Sinatra joined Hazelwood at Capitol Studio in Los Angeles in the fall of 1967 for a three hour session. It is a great song and I especially like the arrangement with the strings and horns by Billy Strange. They know it well. Come Together. The prudent rendition of a family-friendly classic could be mistaken for old footage from Daddy’s heyday, were it not for the technicolour and the fleshiness of his jowls. The reason that the song persists as a perennial favorite of mine is the ARRANGING !Phil Spector once said that he was charged with presenting an entire teenage opera in the 2.5 minute constraint of a juke box single: love, betrayal, hop, despair all must happen in two and a half minutes.In 'Some Velvet Morning' the arranging has an absolutely cinematic quality to it due to the use of intercuts between the male and female vocals; line for line until they have merged. Hazelwood's uber-masculine passages, juxtaposed with Sinatra's uber-feminine never overlap but remain utterly separate (if musically complimentary) universes throughout. According to one review, overdubbing was not used. In 1967, a man in his 20's or 30's was not going to be tolerated in much of the culture fooling around with 'jailbait' of 16. "How she made it end" is not in lyrics.Or perhaps Phaedra was in fact prepubertal. The flowers have always been doors (vortex) of energy. Its about mythology which often is beyond the realm of reason.The movie "Phaedra" that came out in 1962, revisits an ancient Greek tale where the wife of a man of a boy by another woman, falls in love with his son. I love to find meanings in songs and works of literature. When Neil Halstead and Rachel Goswell mutter the ever-shortening verses, the emotional complexity of Hazlewood and Howard’s versions is dimmed and distorted into a static-ridden dirge. A few years after its release, the A&R department at Reprise asked him to work with Nancy Sinatra, who had signed to the label four years earlier, but never produced a hit. Looking at the video with Nancy, it looks like beauty and the beast. This Very Special Television Presentation of “Some Velvet Morning” is a precise encapsulation of the haunting weirdness of the song that Hazlewood wrote and recorded with Sinatra in 1967. As a child I would sometimes spin around in circles until I fell down. I've spent my whole life explaining my name, how to pronounce it, spell it, etc. It was Phaedra’s silence that kept her alive; once she’s named what she wants, her only recourse is death. [6], "It’s not meant to mean so much. We are not told of a motive for suicide. obscure. 'Phaedra was a plant which contained a natural drug which made the male singer's life livable but which also had a down side (look at us, but do not touch).
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