Shirley Bassey - The Ballad Of The Sad Young Men (1976 Show #1)
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- Опубликовано: 7 сен 2024
- 1976 (Shirley performs this sultry but sad torch (style) song with her own unique richly dramatic vocal style on her 1976 TV Variety Show. This song was originally written by Tommy Wolf and Fran Landesman for the musical, 'The Nervous Set' but the words can mean many different things to many people.)
Shirley recorded and released this song on her 1972 LP titled, 'And I Love You So'
ABOUT this song:
This song is from the 1959 Musical called, 'The Nervous Set'. The Nervous Set, the jazz musical born in St. Louis' legendary Gaslight Square entertainment district in 1959, described the Beat Generation, the young people in post-World War II, pre-Vietnam America, swimming in disillusioned angst and apathy, angry, poetic and nihilistic. But this was not a musical about the Beats; this was a Beat Musical, funny, biting, outrageous, despairing, and brilliantly witty. Stubbornly refusing to give the audience a boffo finale, refusing even to offer them people to care about or the satisfaction of applause, doggedly determined to offend, discomfort, even repel now and then.
But even through the haze of verbal and emotional fog, The Nervous Set is also truthful, a serious social document, a record of a time and place that should never be forgotten, when America had lost its way and lost track of what's important. It is a loving evocation of the Beat Generation, with all its warts and contradictions, all its nihilism and its earth-shattering realignment of modern literature and poetry. Everyone knows about the hippies, but how many people know where the hippies came from?
The Nervous Set opened on March 10, 1959, in a three hundred seat saloon-theatre-club called the Crystal Palace, in the heart of the Gaslight Square entertainment district in St. Louis. Strange as it might seem to those who weren't there, for almost a decade in the late fifties and early sixties, Gaslight Square was an international mecca for Beat writers, up-and-coming comedians, and jazz musicians, like yet-to-be-stars Woody Allen, Lenny Bruce, Barbra Streisand, Phyllis Diller, the Smothers Brothers, Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Alan Arkin, and so many others.
For more information on this Musical you can go on line and type in, 'The Nervous Set'
LYRICS:
Sing a song of sad young men,
glasses full of rye
All the news is bad again,
kiss your dreams goodbye
All the sad young men,
sitting in the bars
Knowing neon nights,
and missing all the stars
All the sad young men,
drifting through the town
Drinking up the night,
trying not to drown
All the sad young men,
singing in the cold
Trying to forget,
that they're growing old
All the sad young men,
choking on their youth
Trying to be brave,
running from the truth
Autumn turns the leaves to gold,
slowly dies the heart
Sad young men are growing old,
that's the cruelest part
All the sad young men,
seek a certain smile
Someone they can hold,
for just a little while
Tired little girl,
does the best she can
Trying to be gay,
for a sad young men
While a grimy moon,
watches from above
All the sad young men,
who play at making love
Misbegotten moon
shine for sad young men
Let your gentle light
guide them home again
All the sad,
sad,
sad,
young men
I first heard Miss Shirley singing this way back when she came to Glasgow in I think 1986, it was May anyway. I cried from the heart. I had been badly raped as a boy of 11 years old, been used since then, & this song, touched my soul as it always does. I call this lady "Aunty Shirley" because she saved my life. This great Lady has lifted me over the years, and kept me going. I'm Still Here because of DSB.
Thank you for sharing your survival - it does get better!
God bless you my friend.
"Diva" status must be given to this woman....The adulation of the audience, the "truth" of her singing....As a devotee of the greatest singer of all time...Maria Callas...I'm struggling to find the emotional "tap" that this fabulous interpreter, could not equally "turn-on!!".......Sublime!!!....Dame Shirley........I'm truly..in awe!!!...xxxx
I adore the great Maria Callas as well. I hold Callas up there along with Shirley as 2 of the best examples of the emotional performance - both theatrically and vocally and yet, in such different ways obviously. Not to be compared, just adored.
The greatest female vocalist of all time!!
I've been in love with her since I was 12. I'm 64 now and still listen to her every day. Always makes me feel better.
I'm also 64, and I agree with everything you wrote.
Dame Shirley Bassey was perfect! At 76 years of age she still has that powerful voice!
Full, rich, absolute beautiful tone's complete 💯✅ voice passionate incredible, Dame Shirley Bassey brings me to tears, the way she does this tune, she owns this!!! BEST rendition of all time Everlasting adorations for favorite DIVA in the 🌎 Legend Greatest DSB ❤️❤️🙏🏼💎💎♾️🎶
🙏❤ There Are No Words, other than Simply Magnificent ❤🙏 "The Great Bassey"
Only Dame Shirley Bassey can do this beautiful, haunting & poignant song justice . Superb vocals coupled with genuine emotion provide the listener with a wonderful experience.
I haven't dare to listen to this song since the AIDS epidemic. It doesn't make any reference to it, since it was written years before it, But still. it brings back memories, I saw her perform this song live.
Could you please indulge me to what like experiencing hearing her sing this live felt like? Also the audience reaction? Thank you. X
Bassey is an AMAZING singer, an amazing interrupter of great songs.
God bless DSB
Not only is her interpretation of this gay anthem the best, but this particular performance by her is her best job of it, ever. She had to cut the song from her live performances, because the audiences' emotional responses were too overwhelming. Brava, Shirley!
(Please don't EVER remove this from YT!)
She really knows how to sing a song.
I thought Miriam Makeba's rendition was the best, but it doesn't come close to this. Best of all, unlike Makeba, she sings the entire song. Bravo, Dame Shirley!!
As a piano teacher..........Shirley......your phrasing is impeccable.......Divina!!.
The one and only
Happy 80th Birthday, Dame Shirl!
The one and only Shirl ,I have been lucky to see her since I was Twelve ,she is to me the best .......love you Shirl, come dine with me.........................xxxx
Does anyone remember the Capitol Cinema in Cardiff ??? that was the first time , changed my life for ever ................xxxx
🙏❤The Most Magnificent Voice❤🙏
I love the way they start to scream before she's even started
I saw her sing this live at the Royal Festival Hall in London
she just stood still for seven solid minutes and sang it
it was like the world stopped - you knew you were in the same room as somebody incredible - hard to put into words - I'll never forget it
Probably the most explicit emblem of my life! Thank you!
... "Sad young men are growing old... _that's_ the cruelest part"
..... That single line ... everytime... that's the _saddest_ part...
Simply The Best
For years, this song was a staple of Dame Shirley's concerts, but she finally had to delete it because the emotional response of her predominately gay male audience was so overwhelming. Roberta Flack once recorded it, but no one can pack it with the heartbreaking punch that Ms. Bassey gives it. I've seen her in concert more times than I can count, and she is my favorite singer, bar none (sorry, Barbra). In this wonderful wonderful performance, you can hear the audience's immediate response!
Great song superbly sung. As good as it gets.
Captivating performance!!!
Absolutely fantastic.. I love Shirley so much, and this song is a total classic. Thank you so much for posting this..
I love this
Fabulously rendered and insightful.
brava dsb. sublime
Uma voz de ouro!!!! uma interpretação emotiva!!!!
Maravilhosa,sensual.
Obrigada.
diva much LOVE
Happily, one can interpret a song to mean anything, and it's easy to perhaps hear this as gay anthem simply because Dame Shirley sings it, but it wasn't meant to be. The lyrics were written by Fran Landesman for the play "The Nervous Set" wherein she intended to describe the decaying and disillusioned lives of the aging beatniks of New York's "Beat Generation" -- poets and artists who rapidly fell out of fashion in the 1950s and early 1960s. I don't like to think that Fran was describing gay men as drunken "desperate" and "sad" and lonely or misbegotten. Similarly, Eydie Gorme's big hit "If He Walked Into My Life" is viewed as a torch song -- and often as a gay man's torch song -- but it is actually a ballad sung by Auntie Mame in the musical "Mame" where she wonders why her nephew has grown up and changed so much. I guess that's the genius behind the lyricist and the persona of the singer -- a song can reinvent itself.
***** - Thank you for your comments Dave. When I first heard this song from Shirley I thought of soldiers during war, with a quick break before they had to go back to the front lines again. You are right. This song has real meaning for many people, thanks to the genius of Fran Landesman. By the way, Shirley Bassey has a wonderful version of 'If He Walked Into My Life' that I've also uploaded. Regards, Scot
+Dave Mattia But since it IS Shirley Bassey singing it, and since she's been well aware of, and loyal to, her enormous gay following for many decades, it's not erroneous to accept HER interpretation as the gay anthem of that generation. Happily, thanks to many of us fighting the good fight for our human rights, it is no longer relevant of our lifestyle; we are no longer sad young men, of any age.
@@edwardjames50 THIS. If you were a teenage boy in the early 70's, away from home for the 1st time at college, then this song was what you felt your life was and would be. Fortunately times did change and life had more promise than we felt then.
The magic of music is that: everyone can interpret a song differently. It can mean different things to different people. No right or wrong answers.
I hope they were standing up after that.
She is always beating herself.
I know that she performed this song live even in the 90's.
Wow I really would like to hear it if anybody has it kept.
The same about All by Myself performed live in the 90's.
well, you do know that the beatniks and poets lived in the village, Greenwich Village that is,and were considered gay even at that time. although perhaps the term Gay was not yet used . more like sad young men.
I think it's about the world war 2