Silence is Golden

I feel a sudden urge to sing
the kind of ditty that invokes the Spring
So, control your desire to curse
while I crucify the verse
This verse I've started seems to me
the "Tin Pan-tithesis" of melody
So to spare you all the pain,
I'll skip the darn thing and sing the refrain...

Verses to me are the unsung heroes of Songbook standards — the part of the song that adds so much, but typically gets overlooked completely. (Showtune aficianados will recognize the intro verse above as the lead in to Cole Porter's classic song, "De-Lovely.")

Lately, I've been living with a song that is the rare case of the reverse — the singer completely cuts out the chorus, and sings the verse alone. I'm wondering if there is any other case of this? If you know of another instance, please share!

The song that I refer to is Nina Simone's recording of "Beautiful Land," which is a tune from a 1965 Broadway show, "The Roar of the Greasepaint, the Smell of the Crowd" written by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley. In the musical, the song sung by the "Urchins,"a chorus of sassy kids, opens the show.



Simone sings this song about the colors of the rainbow in an unusual childlike voice. People who've never heard the song before usually tell me that they aren't sure whether a man or a woman is singing.

Red is the color of a lot of lollipops,
Orange is any orange on a tree.
Yellow's the color of a bag of lemon drops,
Green is a piece of seaweed in the sea.

Blue is the color of the sky in summertime
Indigo is a Siamese cat's eyes.
Violet's the color of a flow'r in wintertime.
These are the colors of the rainbow skies.

Here's the chorus, the part of the song that doesn't get sung...

There is a beautiful land
Where all your dreams come true;
It's all tied up in a rainbow,
All shiny and new;
But it's not easy to find
No matter what you do.

It's not on top of a mountain
Or beneath the deep blue sea
Or in London zoo or in Timbuktoo,
Or in Timbuckthree.

And if you travelled the world
From China to Peru,
There's no beautiful land on the chart.
An explorer could not begin
To discover its origin
For the beautiful land is in your heart.

I find myself wondering why she chose not to sing this refrain. Was it because she didn't like the melody or the lyrics? Or was it because a singer can't ever sing something that they don't really believe? I've read scientific articles that say that it's very hard to get away with lying when you sing. Apparently, studies have shown that the listener can usually sense the truth.

I've read that Simone used silence as a musical element to great effect when she performed in her concerts. She compared it to "mass hypnosis. I use it all the time." Perhaps, this was an example of silence being greater than words?






“Music and silence combine strongly because music is done with silence, and silence is full of music.”

— Marcel Marceau (b. 1923) <<< Look, there's that year again!