[This is another in an occasional series on popular songs with long histories. Part 1 — which focused on the song’s composition and lyrics — appeared on Wednesday.]
How many times and by which performers has “Begin the Beguine” been covered? It is to laugh.
The most comprehensive list I’ve seen was on the page of information at the WICN radio station’s site which I mentioned in Part (1) of this post. That list includes around 118 names “and many others” (I can’t swear to the count — I counted it once but am damned if I’ll put myself through that again :). Among those names — and aside from the dozens of Big Bands who jumped on the song following Artie Shaw’s success with it — were artists as varied as Chet Atkins, Liberace, Frankie Lyman & The Teenagers, Julio Iglesias, Django Reinhardt, Coleman Hawkins, Lalo Schifrin, Mario Lanza…
One thing you notice from many of these covers is how heavily their pacing and rhythm have been influenced by the Shaw swing-band version. But how close was that version to Cole Porter’s intentions?
Let’s refer again to Porter himself, who once wrote of the dance called the beguine (emphasis added): “I was very much taken by the rhythm of the dance, the rhythm was practically that of the already popular rumba but much faster.” Compare this with the writeup by the anonymous WICN writer (emphasis added): “It is similar to a rumba, but slower, with dance moves performed smoothly and deliberately. Like many Latin dances, the beguine emphasizes the ability to roll the hips to evoke sensuality while performing the steps.”
(Yeah — no wonder so many artists have covered “Beguine”: apparently there’s enough leeway for them to do whatever the heck they want with it.)
As I mentioned in Part (1), the song didn’t immediately take off in popularity, although a version by Xavier Cugat got to #13 on the pop-music chart. That version was produced in 1935 — the same year that “Beguine” was published, and three years before Artie Shaw took it on. Furthermore, Cugat claimed to have been present at the moment of Porter’s epiphany about the song’s rhythm. So let’s listen to Cugat: maybe this is as close to Porter’s intentions as anyone could have recorded:
Wild, eh? I can sort of see that hip-rolling action which WICN speaks of, but on the whole the thing sounds breezier than a straight-up rumba. So perhaps Porter’s “much faster” description of the dance was pretty close to what he actually intended to capture with his song.
(I tend to think of Cugat’s version as an instrumental, despite that weird creepy nasal-yodeling “When they be-giiiiiiiin, the be-geeeeeeeen!” which is credited to someone named Don Reid. I don’t know if Don Reid was a man or a woman — haven’t found his/her name coupled with a pronoun anywhere online — but the hair stood up on the back of my neck when I heard that.)
In trying to decide what vocal interpretations to include in this post, I wanted to offer a reasonably good range of unexpected performers and performances.
For the first, we have a little bit of a back story as well as an audio:
Among the curious artifacts of the 1960s was the popularity of an Indian mystic who went by the name Meher Baba, who died in 1969. That’s his picture at the top of this post; it’s from a card which his supporters distributed in order to promote Meher Baba’s philosophies. And yes: this particular slogan did inspire Bobby McFerrin’s hit single from 1988, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”
So what’s Meher Baba doing in this post? From the mehergalore.org Web site:
“Begin the Beguine” was a song written by Cole Porter in 1930s and was Meher Baba’s favourite. In fact, He had instructed that the song be played when He would drop His physical body. Baba remarked the song had an eternal meaning. Beloved Meher Baba stated the following in May, 1958 after listening to this record…
“The First Song of the Infinite is the beginning of creation. It brings about the apparent descent of the Infinite into the domain of multiple duality. Duality implies unending sufferings.
“I am eternally happy, for I know that I am the Infinite One. I alone exist, there is nothing besides me, all else is illusion. Simultaneously, I suffer eternally. [etc. etc. in this vein]…”
(How much did Meher Baba love “Begin the Beguine”? According to Wikipedia, during the seven days between his death and burial, “in compliance with Meher Baba’s wish, Cole Porter’s song Begin the Beguine was played repeatedly on a record player.” Which makes one wonder how long his mourners lingered — I mean, I too love the song; but played over and over for seven days? Sheesh.)
But wait! (as the infomercials say) — there’s more! For among Meher Baba’s adherents was Pete Townsend of The Who. Wikipedia, again:
Parts of the rock-opera Tommy (May 1969) were inspired by Townshend’s study of Meher Baba, to whom the album was dedicated. The Who’s 1971 song “Baba O’Riley” was named in part after Meher Baba and on his first solo album, Who Came First, Townshend recorded the Jim Reeves song, “There’s A Heartache Following Me”, saying that it was Meher Baba’s favorite song.
Maybe Wikipedia is wrong about the mystic’s favorite song — or maybe mehergalore.org is, or Pete Townsend himself; I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter in the context of this post, for Townsend included on his 1970 Happy Birthday album (released on what would have been Meher Baba’s 76th birthday) his own interpretation of “Begin the Beguine”:
Breezes, the hint of surf, acoustic sound… Somehow, I don’t think the guitar got smashed at the end of that performance.
One of the more recent — and most interesting — covers I found comes from a duo I’d never heard of before. It appears on the 2005 album love me like the roses [iTunes / Amazon], by divineMAGgees (no “the,” and pronounced like “divine Maggies”). If you, like me, knew nothing of them, a summary at their Web site says: “harmony driven alt-folk rock, with a touch of bluegrass, jazz and punk.” (Whoa, right?) Danielle Tibedo plays piano and acoustic and electric guitar; Cregan Montague plays the acoustic and five-string electric violin.
Here’s a sweet, lilting “Begin the Beguine,” the divineMAGgees way:
(On the strength of that number alone, I now want to hear everything divineMAGgees records… even if, as their site says, they have “transformed into a new band called Osaka Pearl” — about which, again, I know nothing further.)
One more off-center little note about “Begin the Beguine” covers: In 1962, Elvis Presley wanted to record the song, but with a twist: he wanted to write his own lyrics. Perhaps not surprisingly, Cole Porter said “No, thanks” to the rewrite, so Elvis wrote a sorta kinda beguine-ish song of his own, with the help of guitarist Charlie Hodge and bodyguard Red West. “You’ll Be Gone” was released in 1965, on an album called Pot Luck:
If it’s hip-rolling you’re after, Elvis is your man.
The final bit I want to include, bizarrely (maybe) can seem like it doesn’t include any vocal or instrumental accompaniment at all. It’s an excerpt from an MGM film, Broadway Melody of 1940, for which “Begin the Beguine” is the show-stopping musical climax. The entire routine is about nine minutes long; it begins with two separate vocal performances of “Beguine.” The first is a strange solo by one Lois Hodnott — strange because of the almost operatic and certainly languorous, melodramatic packaging in which she wraps it. The second is performed in sassy Andrews Sisters-style, by a group called the Music Maids.
I don’t care about either of those vocals. What I care about is the dance number which the Music Maids’ version introduces: Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell, tap dancing, with the orchestra silenced for a while as though they can’t believe what they’re witnessing. It’s flat-out amazing (especially for someone whose only “tap dancing,” ever, will be his stumbling on tiled floors), and is often cited as the best tap dance ever filmed.
(Astaire and Powell appear about the one-minute mark, after the Music Maids.)
(You can catch the whole nine-minute routine on DailyMotion, if you’d like. The full thing actually includes two Astaire/Powell routines, but THE version you want to see starts about six minutes in.)
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P.S. Two no-fooling really last tidbits of trivia, included for reasons of my own:
- Back in Twin Peaks territory, in Episode 8 (the Season 2 opener) Laura Palmer’s father Leland passes out during a dinner party at the Hayward home. Doc Hayward waves a bottle of smelling salts under Leland’s nose. He wakes up with a crazy look in his eyes, and says, “I feel good… Begin the beguine!” [source]
- You might also be interested in following the Team D.U.D.E. webcomic saga entitled “Begin the Beguine,” which began appearing earlier this year (although the artist started drawing the comic a couple years ago, but is now posting only new stuff). I asked Sheanna Molloy, the face behind Team D.U.D.E., why she chose that title for the strip. She said:
Begin The Beguine is a very sweet song, and I always liked the title a lot. I’m also a huge audiophile who thinks very musically, so I have a tendency to name things after song titles and lyrics. The song frequently talks about beginning something but also remembering something, and since this is the very first comic, the beginning of the whole long story that’s about to unwind, but also a memory the character is reminiscing on, I felt it’d be at least somewhat fitting.
(She added, “It’s kind of a dumb explanation I’m afraid!” Hmm. Not so sure about that. To me it sounded pretty smart, y’know?) The image below is an excerpt from Episode 1:
Froog says
Have you seen De-Lovely, a rather theatrical film treatment of Porter’s life, starring Kevin Kline as the great man? It has several celebrity cameos from singing stars of today performing his most famous songs. Begin The Beguine is done by Sheryl Crow, a torch-song version, much slower and sultrier than most of her own stuff. I’ve been thinking for a while of including that in one of my ‘Fantasy Girlfriends’ posts, and was worried that you might have been about to beat me to it! But your selections here are much more left-field. I too shall be seeking out more of ‘divine MAGgees’.
ReCaptcha is now ordering ice cream: regular fudge.
cynth says
Of course I would have to add my own tidbit. About the Eleanor Powell/Fred Astaire bit, in the tribute to Astaire (the American Film something or others that I always want to get copies of and never can), Powell said she remembered their dancing to the song after hours of rehearsing. They finally finished and Astaire, swept away with the moment of euphoria for a job so spectacularly done, swung Miss Powell around and said, “Oh, Ellie!”. He, the consummate gentleman, then realized what he had done, put her down and said, “Miss Powell.” She smiled and said something like she wished they could do it just one more time.
Of course, for me, their rendition is the ultimate performance of the song.
John says
Froog: Haven’t seen De-Lovely, no. Would you recommend it?
While working on this two-part series, I had the YouTube clip of Ms. Crow’s version in the various drafts, right up until about an hour before I closed it off. Ultimately decided not to include it because it seemed like an easy choice. Dang, if I’d known I was on the brink of scooping you I might have reconsidered!
cynth: You know, I would have been crushed if you hadn’t commented on this topic at all — especially on the Astaire number. That’s a great story about his forgetting himself for a moment!
s.o.m.e.one's brudder says
okay, this is a bit TOO weird. Travel the byways of the internet this weekend. I found and downloaded one of my all time favorite albums: “Who Came First”, including some bonus tracks. I had not read this column first. Upon listening to said bonus tracks I encountered the last song – Begin the Beguine and was floored that Townsend had recorded it for ANY reason. Immediately jumped to RAMH so that I could post this recent find on the comments part of Part I of this thread only to be greeted by the smiling countenance of Meher Baba. Someone please tell me that Rod Serling is still alive. Cue music please…..TZone theme song, that is…. (recaptcha: issues canvassed). This really is a Twilight Zone episode, or did you just set up a web cam in my office?
s.o.m.e.one's brudder says
one other thought regarding the PT version (is there another one? oh yeah, just read the rest of this post Mike, duh!): that opening is preview of coming attractions. Listen to Quadrophenia and you will find a much more melancholy use of a nearly identical soundscape (maybe the very same – listen for the gulls), especially at the beginning (coincidentally?) of “Sea and Sand”. Uses this device throughout the two LP set – an “environmental” sound just before either some burst of vocal, drum explosion by Keith Moon, or blasting guitar chord. Reminder that even great artists learn to steal…er, ahem… reinterpret…. from themselves.
John says
brudder: I’m a great noticer of and believer in coincidence, but you’re right: this goes a little beyond the pale!
I think I listened to Quadrophenia exactly once, in the basement of a friend who later became a brother-in-law. Wasn’t it supposed to have been created to take advantage of the “new” “quadrophonic” sound? (Like Firesign Theatre’s Everything You Know Is Wrong, I think.) Whatever happened to quadrophonic sound, anyhow? Did it go the way of HD-DVD in the Blu-Ray world?
My own recaptcha: outdone $100-million.
s.o.m.e.one's brudder says
More “Begin” weirdness – turned on Sirius Jazz station this weekend for the first time in months. What’s the first song that comes on: Art Tatum’s version of “Begin…”. Clearly, I’m haunted.
John says
brudder: Once again, you leave me gobsmacked.
I think this is all a sign from the universe that you should learn how to play it on the harmonica.
Javi says
Great! Too many friends in one song!
Louise Garnant says
An interesting note — The Divine Magees/Osaka Pearl are also followers of Meher Baba.
John says
@Louise Garnant – Thank you — that IS interesting. It’s almost beginning to seem that the song has more connections to Meher Baba than to Cole Porter!
Bob Dye says
I have a memory of the song being performed, several times, in a war-time movie, taking place in a production plant (aircraft?) – not by Deanna Durbin but by a more sultry actress. I saw the movie, probably on an afternoon matinee in the 50’s. Have been unable to find any reference to it, anywhere…
John says
Hello, Bob, and nice to meet you.
It’s possible that the film you’re thinking of is The Rocketeer, although that came out a few decades later than the time period you mentioned. It’s sung by an actress named Melora Hardin. I haven’t found a video of its actually being performed by her, but here’s one which may jog your memory:
(Note: Melora Hardin is the one featured in the first few stills there, in the night-club sort of setting (not, alas, in a factory). The other woman the video shows — the brunette — is Jennifer Connelly, who actually starred in the film.)
Wikipedia’s also got a list of the song’s use in films. It may or may not be complete, but you might refer to that as well.
Bob Dye says
Thanks – that’s not it and I suspect Wiki’s list is missing this one.
docweasel says
Just noting that Pete Townsend’s album Who Came First: The author mentions the Jim Reeves song Townsend recorded for “Who Came First” as Baba’s fav song. But that album ALSO includes a version of Begin the Beguine! Is it possible the author mixed up which song Pete was referring to?
John says
Yes, it’s possible. :)
John says
Seriously, though, thanks for the question. As I mentioned above, I got the claim about the Jim Reeves song from Wikipedia. As occasionally happens with Wikipedia, that claim no longer appears on the Meher Baba page. However, apparently the Reeves song was indeed one of his favorites, if not THE favorite. See for instance here at International Business Times:
(See also this page, which seems to confirm the IBT claim.)
So it’s a moderately tangled tale — tangled as a result of the twists and turns of the Internet trail. Hope that clears it up for you!