Tag: Music

I’ve never been to Rome. But after listening to Dean Martin’s On An Evening in Roma I sometimes feel as if I have. 

When the Pax Plena Song of the Week, On An Evening in Roma, was released in 1959, Fidel Castro had just assumed power in Cuba, the Barbie Doll made its debut, and the Dali Lama made his initial flee from Tibet. Though the world was surely going through trying times, Dean Martin’s easy singing style helped the world forget. By the time On An Evening in Roma was released, Martin had already been on the American music scene for more than ten years. In that span, he released the much heralded That’s Amore, and the eventual No. 1 hit Memories Are Made of This.

By contrast, On An Evening in Roma never even cracked the top 50 songs on the American charts and fared even worse over seas.

But what makes the song a classic is its singer. Martin, perhaps more than any crooner of his era, masterfully uses his voice to tell a story. The music proceeds languidly, as  the faux Italian sound dictates that it should, while listeners detect a hint of mischief as Dino describes the couples of Rome wandering off. But above all, it is Martin’s warbling voice, explaining the mysterious, arbitrary role of the espresso in the grander scheme of love that makes the song ‘perfetto’. 

The song has seen a bit of a resurgence of late, appearing on soundtracks in a number of movies, some related to Rome, and others not. I suspect this is attributable to both Martin and the song’s lyrics. What Dean Martin does that other versions of the song do not is use his low-tenor voice to playfully describe the scene listeners hear – from Rome’s street lamps, to its starry skies. Dino flat makes Rome come alive.  And everyone loves a good love story, right?

In some ways, there is only so much that the written word will do to describe the ability of Dean Martin. Without further delay, please enjoy the Pax Plena song of the week, On An Evening Roma, as performed by the legendary Dean Martin. 

On An Evening In Roma Lyrics

by Dean Martin

Como e’ bella ce’ la luna brille e’ strette
strette como e’ tutta bella a passeggiare
Sotto il cielo di Roma

Down each avenue or via, street or strata
You can see ’em disappearing two by two
On an evening in Roma

Do they take ’em for espresso
Yeah, I guess so
On each lover’s arm a girl I wish I knew
On an evning in Roma

Though there’s grining and mandolining in sunny Italy
The beginning has just begun when the sun goes down

So please meet me in the plaza near your casa
I am only one and one is much too few
On an evening in Roma

Don’t know what the country’s coming to
But in Rome do as the Romans do
Will you on an evening in Roma

Como e’ bella ce’ la luna brille e’ strette
strette como e’ tutta bella a passeggiare
Sotto il cielo di Roma

Don’t know what the country’s coming to
But in Rome do as the Romans do
Will you on an evening in Roma

Sott’er celo de Roma
On an evening in Roma

The Pax Plena Song of the Week made its way across my radar late this spring while watching a disturbingly funny movie called (500) Days of Summer. In fact, readers may recall a separate clip that we featured, which remains one of the funniest movie lines of the year.

The song of the week enters the film after the chronically depressed character Tom Hansen (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) finally scores with love interest Summer Finn (played by Zooey Deschanel). Upon exiting her apartment, a dance sequence ensues featuring You Make My Dreams.

There really isn’t much more to the song than this, but it has been a welcomed addition to my ‘happy songs’ playlist – a particularly useful list given that I have been studying for the bar exam all summer.

And it’s hard not to smile while watching the scene from the film. It makes me wonder what life would be like if dance sequences randomly occurred while walking through a city park. One can dream, I suppose…

With that, please enjoy, the Pax Plena song of the week, Hall and Oates’ You Make My Dreams. The film clip featuring the song appears directly below, followed by the song in full, and lyrics.

And just for the record, the movie itself is quite the film as well. It will doubtless hit close to home for anyone who has loved, or loved and lost. Enjoy!

The actual performance of the song by Hall and Oates:

You Make My Dreams

by Hall and Oates

What I want, you’ve got
And it might be hard to handle
But like the flame that burns the candle
The candle feeds the flame
What I’ve got’s full stock of thoughts
and dreams that scatter
You pull them all together
And how, I can’t explain
But You make my dreams come true
On a night when bad dreams become a screamer
When they’re messin’ with the dreamer
I can laugh it in the face
Twist and shout my way out
And wrape yourself around me
‘Cause I ain’t the way that you found me
I’ll never be the same
‘Cause You make my dreams come true
I’m down on the daydream
That sleepwalk should be over by now
I know that You make my dreams come true”

The Pax Plena Song of the Week comes to you courtesy of country music, and the the late 1980s.

Doubtless, few will remember what they were doing during the hot and dusty summer of 1988. Yours truly was roughly five years old (almost six!). President Reagan appointed Judge Anthony M. Kennedy to the United States Supreme Court that spring. Microsoft had just released Windows 2.1. And, perhaps most memorably, later that December, Pan Am Flight 103 would explode over Lockerbie, Scotland.

But sometime, during the lowly month of August, Capitol Records would release the third album of country music upstart Dwight Yoakam titled Buenos Noches from a Lonely Room.

The album, by most accounts, had little promise.

To many in southern Oklahoma, a genuine citadel of country music, Dwight Yoakam was a shtick performer – an ugly cross between an epileptic Elvis Presley, and a skinny Vince Gill. Regardless, Yoakam’s album skyrocketed to the top of the Country Music billboards. And, leading the way was our song of the week, The Streets of Bakersfield. Little promise, indeed.

Aside from its underdog appeal, what makes our song unique is its obvious Southwest influence. From the accordion, to the guitars, to the subject matter, The Streets of Bakersfield is rife with the music and energy of the Southwest. In no other region of the world would one expect to find the imagery of the working man so seamlessly melded with the hope of a better life and the reality of bad luck. As a result of this vivid narrative of the American west, it is not difficult to imagine the plight of a drunk, staggering down Chester Avenue in sunny Bakersfield, CA.

Even more than this, the song hearkens back to a musical era, not so long ago, that our society has already forgotten. Country music in the style of Dwight Yoakam and Buck Owens is all but gone, replaced with the pop country of Lady Antebellum and Taylor Swift. Nearly three years ago, I described Dwight Yoakam’s style as a rare deviation from the “kitsch of Nashville.” And even though Nashville is underwater tonight, the statement remains mostly true.

With that, while the song remains up for posterity and the ad revenue of YouTube, please enjoy our Pax Plena Song of the Week, The Streets of Bakersfield. If nothing else, enjoy the traditional country music of the 1980s, and memories of what was a much simpler life.

The Streets of Bakersfield by Dwight Yoakam and Buck Owens

I came here looking for something
I couldn’t find anywhere else
Hey, I’m not trying to be nobody
I just want a chance to be myself

I’ve spent a thousand miles of thumbin’
Yes I’ve worn blisters on my heels
Trying to find me something better
Here on the streets of Bakersfield

Hey you don’t know me but you don’t like me
You say you care less how I feel
But how many of you that sit and judge me
Have ever walked the streets of Bakersfield?

I spent sometime in San Francisco
I spent a night there in the can
They threw this drunk man in my jail cell
I took fifteen dollars from that man

Left him my watch and my old house key
Don’t want folks thinkin’ that I’d steal
Then I thanked him as I was leaving
And I headed out for Bakersfield

Hey you don’t know me but you don’t like me
You say you care less how I feel
But how many of you that sit and judge me
Have ever walked the streets of Bakersfield?

Hey you don’t know me but you don’t like me
You say you care less how I feel
But how many of you that sit and judge me
Have ever walked the streets of Bakersfield?

How many of you that sit and judge me
Have ever walked the streets of Bakersfield?

The long week is over, and below is a Song of the Week to suit the occasion – particularly on this gorgeous Saturday morning.

Of the stars in this performance, Louis Armstrong needs no introduction. Danny Kaye, though, may be a bit more obscure. In case it jogs the memory, Danny Kaye was an actor/singer/comedian who famously starred opposite Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen, in the 1954 classic White Christmas. Anyway, by my estimation, Louis Armstrong and Danny Kaye performed many a beat in the night club circuits of old. Fortunately for us, at least one of their performances was caught on tape.

Simply put, the video below is as fine an ad lib musical performance as any you will find. Ever. What really ‘makes’ the piece is how darn good they both were. We’ve since replaced true musical ability with the likes of Taio Cruz and Ke$ha, but at one point in time musicians actually had talent. The Armstrong & Kaye performance of “When the Saints Go Marching In” reminds us that this was so.

I could describe the song more, but as one commenter on YouTube wrote, ‘It is genuinely unfair for someone to be this good.’ So, please enjoy the Pax Plena Song of the Week, When the Saints Go Marching In.