Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

January–February 1959

Originally written in the 30s for the musical Roberta, "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" has been covered many a-time, most famously in this version by the Platters, which was #1 for three weeks. Here it is, if you can pardon the inept lip-syncing:

This is an example of a song I knew as a jazz standard before I had ever heard the original version. To choose just one example, here's Thelonious Monk playing it. Starting with the bebop artists of the 40s, converting popular songs and show tunes into jazz abstractions was standard fare, and this continued through the 50s and 60s - unquestionably the most productive and creative three decades for jazz music. But as somebody from a much later time, all that music is from the past for me, and you might say I tend to discover these old songs backwards. After all, the intended listeners of all the old jazz greats were expected to already be familiar with songs like these. With the occasional exception, it's the opposite for me - the jazz version is a brand new tune.

It could just be my biased opinion, but I believe you really don't have to know the original song to appreciate improvisations based on it. Although for my favorite example of this, I think everybody knows the original - "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music. The show tune is ridiculously campy but kind of cute, I guess, in its own way. However, John Coltrane's interpretation of it is deeply spiritual and moving (I won't link to it - it's very long, and you should really hear a version with good sound quality to do it justice). If you haven't heard it, it probably seems impossible to take such a corny old song so seriously, but Coltrane and his (terrific) band completely reinvent the song, so much that you totally forget where it came from.

So what do I think about "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes"? I don't really have much to say about it other than it's a good song. A damn good song. I don't know the original show tune version, and quite frankly I don't really care to seek it out, but I really like the Platters singing it. Okay well... till next time!

B+