Spring can really hang you up the most: Not all spring songs describe the pleasures that spring may bring. This 1955 song by Tommy Wolf and Fran Landesman tells that
 " Spring has got me feeling, like a horse that never left the post" or 
 '' Doctors once prescribed a tonic--Didn't help a bit, my condition must be chronic, Spring can really hang you up the most."
The performance of Lisa Rich is quite effective as she clearly articulates the unusual lyrics to bring the essence of the song to life.

 https://youtu.be/FjSAP6sGKxI

Tony Bennett & Where Do You Start ?  This is a tender reminder of what one may feel after a romantic break up. It's a song by Johnny Mandel ( Shadowof your smile, Emily, Theme from M.A.S.H) and lyrics by Allan & Marilyn Bergman.
The song is given a heart felt yet restrained performance by Tony Bennett in an arrangement composd and conducted by Johnny Mandel. This is music making of the highest order.
 
 https://youtu.be/uGG3fbOtAKg

Ella announces that "Spring is Here, I Hear"  Rodgers & Hart wrote this somewhat rueful song that combines the joy of a long delayed winter with the sadness of one who laments " Because no one loves me." 
Here is a perfect example of the power of a verse, a device that serves to introduce the themes of what are to follow in the main chorus. Ella's usual graceful performance is contrasted with the young Sinatra version that conveys the sadness of the lyrics and that plaintive melody.

https://youtu.be/jaXqP0t8CAg         Ella

https://youtu.be/LZi-l9jVgeU           Sinatra

Double Rainbow ( means good luck)  This another fine Bossa Nova song by the Master, Antonio Carlo Jobim. The English lyrics were by Gene Lees, noted jazz scholar and lyricist.
This is a lush otchestral arrangement supporting the light, ethereal voice of singer Stacy Kent. a style most appropriate to convey the essence of the Bossa Nova sound ( relaxed yet with a gently insistent, rhythmic pulse. The arrangement is  by Tommy Lawrence. 

 https://youtu.be/epv-4FZk4wc

A hilarious Bob & Ray radio sketch featuring a bonehead radio interviewer as he screws up his interview with Dr. Daryl Dexter, worlds living expert on the Komodo Dragon . Some younger blog vewers may not be aware of the comedy duo of Bob & Ray who were a very popular radio team on the 1950's. They featured dead pan, often banal sketches. on the mundane aspects of life  with charcters like Wally Bellew , the slow Talkers of America. Charles the Poet etc. I especially love their coverage of the Corrupt Mayor of Skunk Hollow , New Jersey.
 I include this in a musical blog because it demonstrates he importance of timing in comedy just as it is in jazz-the right expression (beat) at the right time. Sometimes the pauses are more significant than the words or notes.

 https://youtu.be/NqpmJ-VmmpM

Sinatra sings of " That Old Devil Moon."  Burton Lane and E.Y.Harburg wrote the song for Finians Rainbow, a 1947 show dealing with Irish mysticism and racial relations ( quite an unusual combination of subjct matters). The 1967 film starred Fred Astaire and Petula Clark and was the first feature film directed by Francis Ford Coppola before his Godfather Sagas. 

 https://youtu.be/2RLN7WNhiL4

Cole Porter asks " How can you be down in the depths when you live on the nineteenth floor in Manhattan ?"
Renee Fleming. a real live diva, provides an answer.
If you do not have the lover you crave, you will be depressed. She knows that "Even a janitors' wife, has a perfectly good life" but not her.

 https://youtu.be/x8m7joI9bYE

You don't know what love is: A very honest and dramatic lament with genuine melancholic lyrics as well as the blues influenced melodic line. Written, amazingly, for an Abbot and Costello movie. ( No the boys did not sing it to each other)
This is a far superior song to much of what passes today with barely literate utterings screamed at top levels by would-be divas. Cassandra Wilson is a great jazz interpretor who treats this song with the quiet intensity it richly deserves. Music by Gene DePaul, lyrics by Don Raye. They also wrote I'll Remember April , a favorite of jazz players and singers.

https://youtu.be/0KKiR4NumaE 

Every time we Say Goodby: A wonderful Cole Porter love song. Many Cole Porter sonsgare wiity, sexy and brilliantly rhymed.
Everytime we say goodby is plangent, deadly serious about love and a continuing commitment to the other , especcially when they have to say goodby to each other. The beautiful arrangement was by Jorge Callendrelli, the favoured arranger for mature pop singers  featuring a tender duet between Clint Holmes and the lovely Jane Monheit. I especially like the lyrics lines :
" There's no love song finer but how strange the change from mqjor to minor."  4 rhymes in a single line,

 https://youtu.be/Crz65zfF-VE

Bangladesh loves the Great American Songbook.
  
On this blog devoted to Classic American Popular Song, it's always surprising to see the audience for this music all around the Globe. Today, the number of pageviews shows 52 blog visits from Bangladesh. That is more than twice the number of visits from the USA or Canada.
The facts are clear but I am unable to understand this sudden interest from far away. That was also the case when 70 Latvian pageviews were reported on my blog.

This encourages me to search deeper for new and surprising songs to consider.
I hope this international habit continues. As in the song sung by Sinatra " You're getting to be a habit  with me ." 

https://youtu.be/cMnvsNev0Ew

Summer Love  A Beautiful string musical portrait. Robert Farnon is is a transplanted Canadian composer-arranger who has lived and worked in the British Isles for many years.
He is universally recognized as the pre eminent writer for strings and his harmonic innovations you will hear on this song. He has such mastery of the full orchestra as he weaves woodwind and brass elements which are cushioed by the supporting string backdrop.
Summer Love, with it's gentle and seductive musical palette, does evoke idylic days at the beach with the wind and the waves promoting a blissful interlude and a welcome break from the curse of winter inNorth America.

https://youtu.be/D6i35UdJtAE

This Heart of Mine-A symphonic approach to Popular song: Written for the 1944 film Zeigfield Follies, music by Harry Warren, lyrics by Arthur Freed, the song is performed by an orchestra far larger than any symphony with 5 French Horns, 2 pianos and a large chorus. The sound is amazing and worth listening to for 12 minutes of rapture in song. Mathew Ford,the male soloist, although British,has captured the style of singing classic American popular song, the style that conquered the world.

https://youtu.be/VTXYtkG6bpk 

Marry Me A Little:  This is a song written by Stephan Sondheim for Company, a musical about marriage and relationships with Bobby, an uncommited male surrounded by 5 married couples. It is fetchingly sung by Cyrille Aimee, a unique jazz singer who according to the New Yorker " does justice to Sondheims' work" on this song, cut from Company. She covers 13 more unique Sondheim songs in her latest release " Moving On: The Sondheim Adventure." 

 https://youtu.be/W0woyE3oTds