{"id":5389,"date":"2009-12-02T15:54:14","date_gmt":"2009-12-02T20:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=5389"},"modified":"2020-04-10T09:55:44","modified_gmt":"2020-04-10T13:55:44","slug":"whats-in-a-song-cry-me-a-river-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2009\/12\/whats-in-a-song-cry-me-a-river-1\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s in a Song: Cry Me a River<\/em> (1)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"\"[Another in a series of occasional posts about popular American songs with long histories. And if you are seeking information on the Justin Timberlake song by the same name, believe me, you are 100% in the wrong place.]<\/em><\/p>\n

On paper, it doesn’t appear to be a “big” song. Nearly always, the arrangement features a single vocalist and one or two background instruments. The lyrics aren’t even all that special, in one respect: very simple words (with one exception), in a more or less conventional order. At that, the title itself appears six times over the course of the three stanzas, and a slight variation of it thrice more.<\/p>\n

But given the right singer, oh, how loudly this song speaks…<\/p>\n

(Who’s “the right singer”? Hard to say. Wikipedia lists a sample of about 150 of them. Amazon’s MP3 download store includes over 600 hits — many duplicates, of course, but still… And if you go rummaging around on iTunes and elsewhere on the Web, you can quickly fill your hard drive with unique versions.)<\/p>\n

Here’s the story:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In 1953, a 27-year-old singer and aspiring actress (as the term goes) named Julie London<\/a> — that’s her at the top of this post — had already been married for six years to Jack Webb<\/a>. Webb would soon become famous as the creator and star of the Dragnet<\/em> television series. For now, though, he was focused on his new film, Pete Kelly’s Blues<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Based on a popular radio serial, the film was set in Kansas City in the 1920s. Webb himself would direct and star as the title character, a jazz cornetist, but they’d brought in Ella Fitzgerald for a small part as a singer in the speakeasy where Kelly’s band plays. Webb thought it would be a great idea for Fitzgerald to sing some original songs, not just old standards.<\/p>\n

London remembered Arthur Hamilton, a young guy she’d graduated from high school with — in fact, he’d taken her to the senior prom. They’d drifted out of touch since the mid-1940s, but she remembered he’d wanted to be a songwriter. She gave him a call, asked if he was still writing music.<\/p>\n

Decades later, Hamilton recalled<\/a> his reply: “I was — but I was writing them on the backs of prescription blanks, working as a delivery boy for a prominent drugstore chain.”<\/p>\n

At the urging of London and Webb, and although he’d never written a blues song, Hamilton cranked out three tunes: “He Needs Me”, “Sing a Rainbow,” and “Cry Me a River.”<\/p>\n

Yeah, I never heard of the first two, either. But oh my: “Cry Me a River”…<\/p>\n

\"\"As I’ll explain in detail in a moment, Webb used both of the other songs in his film but not<\/em> the big one. Instead, it sat around unclaimed for a while — in fact, long enough for Webb and London to divorce. And it was not Ella Fitzgerald but Julie London herself who introduced it to the world, on a single released the same year (1955) as Pete Kelly’s Blues<\/em>. It was a huge hit, leading to Billboard<\/em>‘s naming her the most popular female singer for 1955, 1956, and 1957.<\/p>\n

Here’s the version she recorded (included on her first full studio album, Julie Is Her Name<\/em>; that’s the album cover above at the left). The lyrics as she rendered them appear below the little audio player.<\/p>\n\n

Lyrics:<\/p>\n

\n

Now you say you’re lonely
You cry the whole night through
Well, you can cry me a river, cry me a river
I cried a river over you<\/p>\n

Now you say you’re sorry
For bein’ so untrue
Well, you can cry me a river, cry me a river
I cried a river over you<\/p>\n

You drove me, nearly drove me out of my head
While you never shed a tear
Remember, I remember all that you said
Told me love was too plebeian
Told me you were through with me and
Now you say you love me
Well, just to prove you do
Come on and cry me a river, cry me a river
I cried a river over you<\/p>\n

I cried a river over you
I cried a river over you
I cried a river over you<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In November, 2001, Los Angeles Magazine<\/em> did a story titled “LA’s Top 100: From the Jukebox at the End of Time, Songs That Made This Town,” by Steve Erickson. Of this performance of “Cry Me a River” — #47 on the list — Erickson wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Intensely shy about her bombshell looks, apprehensive about her torrid singing, musically naked but for a bare bass and stark guitar, London invented a new genre: revenge torch. Robert Johnson by way of Marilyn Monroe.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As I said at the outset, the lyrics themselves are pretty plain on the surface. But they’ve got a couple of remarkable features:<\/p>\n