Ella and Duke — “Lush Life” | This is not my blog.

Ella and Duke — “Lush Life” October 20, 2007

Posted by Jeff in Cool, Ella Fitzgerald, Jazz, Music.
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Ella Fitzgerald on vocals and Duke Ellington on piano, performing one of the the best-known songs of Ellington’s long-time collaborator, Billy Strayhorn.

I used to visit all the very gay places
Those come-what-may places
Where one relaxes on the axis of the wheel of life
To get the feel of life from jazz and cocktails

The girls I knew had sad and sullen gray faces
With distingué traces that used to be there
You could see where they’d been washed away
By too many through the day, twelve o’clock tales

Then you came along with your siren song
To tempt me to madness
I thought for awhile that your poignant smile
Was tinged with the sadness of a great love for me
Ah yes, I was wrong
Again, I was wrong

Life is lonely again and only last year
Everything seemed so sure
Now life is awful again
A trough full of hearts could only be a bore

A week in Paris could ease the bite of it
All I care is to smile in spite of it

I’ll forget you, I will while yet you are still
Burning inside my brain
Romance is mush
Stifling those who strive
So I’ll live a lush life in some small dive
And there I’ll be
While I rot
With the rest of those
Whose lives are lonely, too …