#joe cocker

Love's Been Good to Me - Frank Sinatra (peaked at Number 8)

Well, this is a Frank Sinatra song I know absolutely nothing about. But it was released on a 1969 album, so it's part of his late-career comeback, same as My Way. Which is a song I can't stand, but I'm trying to keep an open mind here, there's plenty of other Frank Sinatra songs I like...

And fortunately, I do indeed think this is a gentler, humbler affair than My Way was. It starts out in a similar vein to My Way, with a line about how I have been a rover, I have walked alone / Hiked a hundred highways, never found a home. But instead of blowing this up into a big deal, singing about the difficulties life's thrown at him, and how Frank, ever the rugged individual, has prevailed over them all in his own, unique way, this track instead takes a different tack, reflecting on how yes, life's been hard at times, but despite it all, Frank's generally content with how his life, since once in a while, along the way, love's been good to me. There are memories of a girl in Denver, with a smile to drive away the storms, another girl in Portland Frank would go out courting with. And those memories are enough, all in all I'm happy, reason is, you see / Once in a while along the way, love's been good to me.

It's a sweet, simple idea, and pretty, as most Frank Sinatra tracks are. At 54, his voice is still fantastic, warm and velvety-smooth. There's a restraint to the delivery, he's not belting or showing off, doesn't need to, it's a quiet, calm sort of track, reflective in a way that suits a slightly older singer. And to compliment it, the track's orchestrated in this very lush, classic style, with sweeping strings, harpsichord, a gentle bit of glockenspiel, woodwind and horns here and there. It's lovely, there's nothing groundbreaking going on, but it's a very classy, listenable vibe.

Delta Lady - Joe Cocker (10)

In contrast, this is a pretty rowdy affair, a blues rock number from Joe Cocker that rocks pretty hard from the word go, with bass and piano playing a funky riff before Joe launches in, full-throated and husky as ever. The whole thing's driving, energetic, jubilant, as Joe sings about his American lover, his delta lady, with a gospel-style backing chorus coming in on the choruses to help him celebrate his love, complete with plenty of tambourine and cowbell, all of which gives Delta Lady a whole lot of oomph, I found myself bopping my head along almost instantly.

The other thing that struck me, though, was how sexy this was! At first, I thought the song was going to go the innuendo route, with lines about Joe longing for your soft and fertile delta. But then you get lines about her yearning for the warmth and tender shelter of my body, or Joe thinking about how many times I found you / Standing wet and naked in the garden. So you know, I guess that's another option. There's an intimacy to all this, but Joe's clearly very comfortable revisiting it, and there's a real sense of fondness to it too, a sense that these are treasured memories, still.

For a song by a British artist, the whole thing sounds super American. You've got Joe's bluesy delivery, the blues rock feel of it all, the gospel elements in the chorus. I guess you'd expect this, in a song about a "Delta lady", but it's still kind of funny to me. I guess there is at least a little nod to the strangeness of it, with that line in the middle with the line about how when I'm home again in England / I think of you, because I love you, love. Which is literally an acknowledgement that Joe isn't actually American, but there's also a very Beatles-ish trumpet fanfare, which I do think at a stretch might be construed as a little cheeky nod to the British Invasion and the sort of musical tradition that Joe's markedly not part of. And then we're right back to the US again, England very deliberately set aside for the charms of the Mississippi Delta.

I'd heard of neither of these songs before, but both were perfectly fine? I will say, I think I'm ready for Frank Sinatra to fade into obscurity, though, with My Way as a final smash hit and then Love's Been Good to Me as a quieter coda, a gentler and more agreeable hit to bow out on. Joe Cocker, on the other hand, feels like he's just getting started exploring this amped-up, Americanized sound. And given the energy he brough to things this week, I'm tentatively quite excited to see where that goes...