"Someday We'll Be Together" – An Appreciation
(http://jdbrecords.blogspot.com/2011/12/track-appreciation-someday-well-be.html)
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
First, cutting into silence, strings like the creeping approach of a single one of Wagner's Valkyries, trembling into the blossoming of the orchestra. Then the plucking, a cocoa-butter balm over some bittersweet wound long neglected, of the acoustic guitar refrain. The heart-beating bass and the percussion start their organic engine, while the strings pull together the threads of a wordless narrative compelling enough without lyrics (as shown in the instrumental version).
Then, onto this billowing water bed, roll the voices - the gospel-sweet, wistful voices whose mmm-mmms savor the tang of their own harmony, offering a return to some childhood that could never have existed - or at least not with such unalloyed sweetness. "Someday," croon these voices, with the exalted certainty of churchgoing aunts, "we'll be together."
Against this choir enters the cooing, unearthly echo of Diana Ross's most skillfully detached performance, which never once strains for its sentiments - supple, svelte, playful as she delivers the banal lyrics and simple rhymes that speak of lost love, regret, and hope. It's the simple acceptance and matter-of-factness that saves what would otherwise have been insipid, as well as the jazzy semi-scat of her phrasing as the song progresses. "You're far away/ from me, my love/ but just as sure, my, my baby/ as there are stars above/ someday ... we'll be together."
If she sang any harder than she does, you wouldn't believe her. It's her calm assurance that convinces the listener she knows the truth of the situation between these lovers, and accepts it with verve.
By accident, songwriter Johnny Bristol's coaxing ad-libs were engineered into the backing recording, and retained when Motown's quality control realized how perfectly they complemented Ross's vocals. You tell em! interjects the disembodied voice, as if in response to a sermon, grounding the celestial aspects of the track in a gravelly soil of soul.
The song's true climax and emotional coda comes not with the high note at the bridge - cry, cry, cryyyyy! - but a few moments later, with the singer's breathless orgasmic confession that I long for you - every, every night, punctuated by a single perfectly pitched angel-coo that sums up Ross's inimitable cotton-candy appeal.
Wearing its sonic layers lightly, "Someday We'll be Together" achieves a more puzzling and compelling interplay of elements than would a straightforwardly sentimental arrangement. Is this a sad song? A joyful song? A hopeful or wistful song? The portrayal of a deluded lover's dream? A danceable soul track? A slow song to listen to alone, with headphones on, enclosed in contemplation? A song for the soldiers in Vietnam, as if Lady Liberty herself were making the titular promise over the airwaves? An ironic commentary on the launch of Diana Ross's inevitable solo career (her backup singers on the track were the Andantes, not the latest lineup of the Supremes)?
Multifaceted, "Someday We'll Be Together" sounds both airy and monumental, echoing through the radio ages as both divinely inspired and amiably run-of-the-mill.
It's hard to believe that even on its original release, it would have sounded current, rather than like an artifact from a hard-to-place earlier time. It's like the memory of an ice cream cone you held as a child - the one that tasted uniquely sweet before it fell through your fingers. The one you're holding now doesn't quite compare, but surely someday you'll taste something that good again.
(http://jdbrecords.blogspot.com/2011/12/track-appreciation-someday-well-be.html)
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
First, cutting into silence, strings like the creeping approach of a single one of Wagner's Valkyries, trembling into the blossoming of the orchestra. Then the plucking, a cocoa-butter balm over some bittersweet wound long neglected, of the acoustic guitar refrain. The heart-beating bass and the percussion start their organic engine, while the strings pull together the threads of a wordless narrative compelling enough without lyrics (as shown in the instrumental version).
Then, onto this billowing water bed, roll the voices - the gospel-sweet, wistful voices whose mmm-mmms savor the tang of their own harmony, offering a return to some childhood that could never have existed - or at least not with such unalloyed sweetness. "Someday," croon these voices, with the exalted certainty of churchgoing aunts, "we'll be together."
Against this choir enters the cooing, unearthly echo of Diana Ross's most skillfully detached performance, which never once strains for its sentiments - supple, svelte, playful as she delivers the banal lyrics and simple rhymes that speak of lost love, regret, and hope. It's the simple acceptance and matter-of-factness that saves what would otherwise have been insipid, as well as the jazzy semi-scat of her phrasing as the song progresses. "You're far away/ from me, my love/ but just as sure, my, my baby/ as there are stars above/ someday ... we'll be together."
If she sang any harder than she does, you wouldn't believe her. It's her calm assurance that convinces the listener she knows the truth of the situation between these lovers, and accepts it with verve.
By accident, songwriter Johnny Bristol's coaxing ad-libs were engineered into the backing recording, and retained when Motown's quality control realized how perfectly they complemented Ross's vocals. You tell em! interjects the disembodied voice, as if in response to a sermon, grounding the celestial aspects of the track in a gravelly soil of soul.
The song's true climax and emotional coda comes not with the high note at the bridge - cry, cry, cryyyyy! - but a few moments later, with the singer's breathless orgasmic confession that I long for you - every, every night, punctuated by a single perfectly pitched angel-coo that sums up Ross's inimitable cotton-candy appeal.
Wearing its sonic layers lightly, "Someday We'll be Together" achieves a more puzzling and compelling interplay of elements than would a straightforwardly sentimental arrangement. Is this a sad song? A joyful song? A hopeful or wistful song? The portrayal of a deluded lover's dream? A danceable soul track? A slow song to listen to alone, with headphones on, enclosed in contemplation? A song for the soldiers in Vietnam, as if Lady Liberty herself were making the titular promise over the airwaves? An ironic commentary on the launch of Diana Ross's inevitable solo career (her backup singers on the track were the Andantes, not the latest lineup of the Supremes)?
Multifaceted, "Someday We'll Be Together" sounds both airy and monumental, echoing through the radio ages as both divinely inspired and amiably run-of-the-mill.
It's hard to believe that even on its original release, it would have sounded current, rather than like an artifact from a hard-to-place earlier time. It's like the memory of an ice cream cone you held as a child - the one that tasted uniquely sweet before it fell through your fingers. The one you're holding now doesn't quite compare, but surely someday you'll taste something that good again.