Frank Sinatra & Dawn Upshaw sing 2 distinctive versions of Rodger's & Hart's " It Never Entered My Mind."
For the 1940 show " Higher & Higher", Richard Rodgers provided a very lovely melodic line to which Lorenz Hart evoked such tender reflections like " You have what I Lack myself" immediately followed by the more colloquial verse " And now I have to scratch my back myself !" Such wordplay highlights Hart's unique ability to juxtapose the sentimental with the sardonic and yet strangely make them work with Rodgers melodic instincts. Alec Wilder, the inveterate archivist and avatar of The Great American Songbook stated that Hart's more energetic and unpredictable writing style eclipsed Oscar Hammerstein's more prosaic " And comfortable armchair philosophy" as found in " Climb Every Mountain" or You'll Never Walk Alone." As for Rodgers. Wilder said that " Rodgers songs have revealed a higher degree of consistent excellence, inventiveness and sophistication than those of any other writers I have studied" including Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin and Cole Porter. Fine praise indeed.
Dawn Upshaw, a classically trained singer has mastered the nuances and naturalness inherent in the American popular song idiom and accompanied only by a piano, she delivers all of the plangent qualities of the song.
Frank Sinatra, accompanied by an orchestra arranged and led by Nelson Riddle, gives an equally somber and expressive performance proving that good song material is capable of a myriad of interpretations while still retaining the essential elements embedded in the song itself.
Upshaw version;
https://youtu.be/tE9qF9MBzs8?list=PLCvqEw1Hw0l1b5fCl73jbua4PsETpGiyg
Sinatra version
https://youtu.be/1fleh1LBFGA
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