If I was told I could only listen to one artist for the rest of my life, it would take me approximately .09 seconds to ask for Nat. When I was a little girl, my sisters and I would listen to his Christmas album in our basement in the middle of July. Even if it was 95 degrees outside and we wore bathing suits and sunburns, hearing one song from that album would inspire us to tell my mom the basement "smelled" like Christmas. In college, Nat King Cole introduced me to an era of music that felt immediately like home to my old soul. Here is Johnny Mercer's "Autumn Leaves," sung by (if the link on the title will work) the velvet genius of the one and only Nat King Cole. It is, in my opinion, the perfect synthesis of emotion, lyric and melody.
Lyrics by Johnny Mercer, Music by Joseph Kosma
The falling leaves drift by the window
The autumn leaves of red and gold
I see your lips, the summer kisses
The sun-burned hands I used to hold
Since you went away the days grow long
And soon I'll hear old winter's song
But I miss you most of all my darling
When autumn leaves start to fall
The falling leaves drift by the window
The autumn leaves of red and gold
I see your lips, the summer kisses
The sun-burned hands I used to hold
Since you went away the days grow long
And soon I'll hear old winter's song
But I miss you most of all my darling
When autumn leaves start to fall
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