Blue skies

© The Foundation World Youth Choir, all rights reserved. Other rights: Hong Kong Treble Choirs' Association. Any resemblance with a third party content is accidental and does not affect the rights to this recording. Performer: World Youth Choir, 2008 session in PRO China (Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Macau) Piece: Blue Skies Text: Irving Berlin Composer: Irving Berlin Arranger: Dr. Steve Zegree Conductor: Dr. Steve Zegree, USA Recorded in the Guangzhou concert hall I was blue, just as blue as I could be Ev'ry day was a cloudy day for me Then good luck came a-knocking at my door Skies were gray but they're not gray anymore Blue skies Smiling at me Nothing but blue skies Do I see Bluebirds Singing a song Nothing but bluebirds All day long Never saw the sun shining so bright Never saw things going so right Noticing the days hurrying by When you're in love, my how they fly Blue days All of them gone Nothing but blue skies From now on I should care if the wind blows east or west I should fret if the worst looks like the best I should mind if they say it can't be true I should smile, that's exactly what I do "Blue Skies" is another great song by Irving Berlin. He wrote it in December 1926 - most likely a week before Christmas - for his first daughter who had been born the month before. Singer Belle Baker introduced it on December 28th in Betsy, a show by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. The lyrics of this song explore the different meanings of "blue": "blue skies", "bluebirds", "blue days" and they are somehow ambiguous. Philip Furia for example notes the surprising and effective use of negative terms: "never", "nothing". But what really "makes" the song is the "subliminally forceful ... tension between words and music ... This internal discord ... may account for the remarkable vitality of 'Blue Skies' ... The words assert total contentment with near-fatuous certainty ... This is a technique typical for Berlin (another striking example is "Always", written the year before): the music undermines and debunks the words and gives them an additional dimension. Song description @ Humming A Diff'rent Tune blogspot.com The World Youth Choir session 2008 was held in China thanks to the cooperation between the Foundation World Youth Choir and the Hong Kong Treble Choirs' Association, Hong Kong. www.worldyouthchoir.org www.hktreblechoir.com/home/en/ For full documentary on 2008 session in China please visit http://vimeo.com/19824692