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Eden Abhez: The strangest hit songwriter
- mkl 2y agoFascinating. I only knew this song as one of the centrepieces of Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge!, but this article doesn't even mention that.
- MBCook 2y agoSame. I didn’t recognize the name but the instant I read those first two lines I heard the Moulin Rouge version in my head.
- Hackbraten 2y agoIt's also a recurring theme in the soundtrack of The Talented Mr. Ripley.
- msephton 2y agoLove this. I don't remember hearing the song before, so it was a double treat!
- dang 2y agoI read an article about Ahbez last year - it went into his early history in (I think) the 1930s around the health food movement, and also about the legal troubles that an attempt to make a documentary about him got into. But now I can't find the article. I seem to recall that his friends had lots of unreleased recordings but weren't allowed to put them out because whoever ended up with the rights to his estate was being unreasonable. https://pleasekillme.com/nature-boy-eden-ahbez/ https://pleasekillme.com/nature-boy-eden-ahbez/ looks good but it wasn't that one. I was surprised by how much he and others anticipated the hippies already in the 1930s. https://lyrakilston.com/2015/03/05/the-remarkable-nature-boys-of-los-angeles/ https://lyrakilston.com/2015/03/05/the-remarkable-nature-boy... has a lot of that backround.
- bsder 2y agoIf you want something interesting, listen to Ahbez sing "Nature Boy" and then listen to Cole sing it. Since Ahbez sings a cappella, he sings "untempered" notes in the correct key while Cole is singing "tempered" ones to match the piano accompaniment--and it changes the feel of the song.
- labster 2y agoI have no idea why people are downvoting you. Are they assuming “untempered” is an insult (it’s not, it’s called just intonation), or is the parent post wrong?
- bsder 2y agoDon't worry about up/down votes. I've had very strange things with a large number of downvotes on a comment and then a very large number of upvotes one or two layers downthread. Presumably there are some bots/brigades that are trying to create a "good history" to try and pretend they are "organic". The bots/brigades don't care about anything more than the first layer.
- mlvljr 2y ago[dead]
- oidar 2y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=339UrDjHDio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=339UrDjHDio
- msephton 2y agoInteresting, this video mentions a Yiddish song "Shvayg, mayn harts" ("Hush, my heart") that it seems to have been inspired by. And on a video of that song https://youtu.be/uT7GcjBnWaw https://youtu.be/uT7GcjBnWaw is this info > ("Shvayg mayn harts") was in the 1935 Yiddish theater show Papirosn. Years later eden ahbez paid Yablokoff $25,000 out of court to settle a plagiarism complaint. Listen to the chorus and see if you think it was stolen. Some say they were both stolen from Antonin Dvorak’s 1887 “Piano Quintet No. 2” - which may have been stolen from Czechoslovakian folk music. Here's a Dvorak comparison https://m.facebook.com/MastersonHomeConcerts/videos/dumka-and-nature-boy/463696484849508/ https://m.facebook.com/MastersonHomeConcerts/videos/dumka-an... Also noteworthy is the fact that eden ahbez preferred to spell his name as all lowercase. All of this and more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_Boy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_Boy including the original poster of this HN item.
- twic 2y agoSaw the photo and assumed it was Norman Greenbaum. In case anyone else is interested in the "unbaked bread, and unfired pies", here is a recipe book: https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.4683/page/111/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.4683/page/111/mode/2up
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- m3kw9 2y agoI like how these kinds of articles hit front page on HN, quite refreshing
- rrherr 2y agoThere’s only one other jazz standard I know of with comparable lyrics: “Lush Life” by Billy Strayhorn. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lush_Life_(jazz_song) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lush_Life_(jazz_song) Listen to Johnny Hartman singing in this recording with John Coltrane: https://youtu.be/sNIn1_RLkmc https://youtu.be/sNIn1_RLkmc
- smrtinsert 2y agoExcellent article. I'd love to watch a documentary on him
- mpalmer 2y agoOne of his songs was featured in the first season of Fargo, which has throughout its run distinguished itself with its off-kilter needle drops. I had no idea he wrote Nature Boy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sMqgetHxww https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sMqgetHxww
- xyzzy_plugh 2y agoSurprised to see this name at the top of this website. Obscure in the moment perhaps but ultimately legendary. Eden's Island is fantastic exotica, perhaps the most iconic. There's even a documentary in the works.
- Nition 2y agoOne thing about this song that the article doesn't really go into is that the chords are just insane, really unusual, and yet it works perfectly - it sounds very different to your average song but it doesn't sound wrong or off-key.
- msephton 2y agoThere's much this articles doesn't mention, such as the hugely popular modern representation of the song in the movie Moulin Rouge, and the songs origin in a Yiddish song and even as far back as Dvorak: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_Boy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_Boy
- Pine_Mushroom 2y agoJust to be contrarian: 'Alone Together' and 'You and the Night and the Music' by Dietz and Schwartz, as well as 'Yesterdays' by Jerome Kern, feature similar harmony, just to name a few popular jazz standards. I'm looking at an original sheet of 'Nature Boy' now and see 1 diminished chord, a couple #5's and a couple b9's: not that unusual really, certainly not in jazz.
- spacechild1 2y agoThe chord progression is rather conventional for this style of music, especially for the late 1940s. Listen to some songs by Cole Porter, Duke Ellington or Vernon Duke from the 1930s.
- fathyb 2y agoAgreed. For spicier chords also recorded by the Nat King Cole Trio on the same set check out Mona Lisa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIDX18Xl16s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIDX18Xl16s
- Sparkyte 2y agoDidn't know him but listening to his biggest hit you grow an appreciation for how the lyrics string together which is not something you'd hear from not musical person like myself.
- exogen 2y agoHis song Full Moon is one of my favorites, it completely transports you to a place.
- zimpenfish 2y agoTIL that "Nature Boy" is quoted in the Num Num Cat Tiktok collaboration. (0:53 to 1:26) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_C1FZ4HtzGY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_C1FZ4HtzGY
- sbeaks 2y agoI think this version is my favourite (kurt elling): https://youtu.be/s8WxZfAV3Bc https://youtu.be/s8WxZfAV3Bc
- buovjaga 2y ago> Frankly, I consider him the first hippie, an advocate for a lifestyle that didn’t even exist when he rose to fame. Hippie-like movements have always popped up as an escape from authoritarian rule and oppression. Raoul Vaneigem frames this well in his book The Movement of the Free Spirit, about medieval and Renaissance heretical movements: https://monoskop.org/log/?p=7986 https://monoskop.org/log/?p=7986 "He sees not only resistance to the power of state and church but also the immensely creative invention of new forms of love, sexuality, community, and exchange."
- rwmj 2y agoThe 1930s in Britain were a great time for Utopian communities. Jonathan Meades did a documentary about them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wujXeI6rj6U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wujXeI6rj6U (review: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2013/feb/02/wonders-life-brian-cox-tv-review https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2013/feb/02/wonders...)
- rubidium 2y agoGlad to see Ted Gioia’s work here. He writing over the last year has been helpful in getting new understanding for me. His posts on technology are sane and levelheaded without being Luddite.
- iainctduncan 2y agoI highly recommend Ted Gioias jazz history books. "West Coast Jazz" is fantastic.