This is again discouraging you with your ideas by the tube man of 1969 assembly.
Do you have a personal book of songs?
Where is collected everything that clings to the soul and from what it, the soul, first unfolds and then folds (or vice versa)?
And if not, then how do you live without it?
It is understandable, all this is a consequence of the infinitely incalculable breadth of the soul of a Russian person.
Also, consider how many of us Russians are of all nationalities and nationalities.
It's not up to the Book of Songs.
Here the country would be raised!
So?
Or maybe not?
There are countries in the world where such books are available.
For example, USA.
Here you can (and should) remember that their culture is not deep, that historicism is two times 100 years old with a children's scoop (and another half a scoop with a pea on top), that America is the territory of pop-mass pop culture, and "that's why, as you can guess, they don’t have a damn thing, except songs” ...
Why so?
They have corn.
And everyone else.
Musk is there, Elon.
Two parties in mortal combat, doka president.
Big trucks with cryptic inscriptions and toothpick gum.
Why slander?
There is enough of everyone across the ocean.
Bile and irony help me stay afloat without drowning under the weight of "modern variety cultural tradition" (however, the water is cold and up to my chin).
Great American Songbook - that's what the damned Yankees call their book.
It contains approximately, say, 350 songs.
Written, roughly, say, in the period from the 1920s to the 1960s of the last century.
Basically, songs from the musicals of Broadway, Hollywood films - all sorts of nonsense, a person ignorant and not poisoned by the romanticism of love, painful experiences, feasts by candlelight, secret confessions, captivating bliss and other things, which in high style is called the sensual world, and in common parlance - love with interest.
When you are in love, my friends, you become surprisingly nonchalant, touching and sentimental.
This means that your heart is open to harmony and empathy with what is exclusively real, without a shadow of vulgarity, without a touch of boredom, mediocrity and emptiness.
Great American Songbook - carefully selected, voted by the hearts and bought with hard earned (in the form of shellac and vinyl discs, depending on the time of release) Happiness.
Let and places naive.
Enthusiastic not on the case, but still Happiness.
One can talk a lot and with sincere bitterness about the vanity of everything that exists.
However...
Whenever you hear Baby, It's Cold Outside, Cheek to Cheek or Days of Wine and Roses... It's worth catching Fly Me to the Moon or How Deep Is the Ocean... You, albeit involuntarily, even without being in the subject , skin, something unconscious you feel: in the blood, like oxygen, these melodies dissolve - and you begin to hum a little audibly under your breath, not knowing, perhaps, the words and probably embarrassing too serious passers-by.
The instant impact of music is the surest sign of its realness.
The Americans, utterly practical, understood and adopted this for a very, very long time
Volumes of books have been written.
There are national competitions.
Megastars from time to time (and you still have to decide on this - to cover very old material, covered by literally all the greats, and not be ridiculed) release solo albums, consisting entirely of Great American Songbook standards!
And the whole world, thoroughly probed and photocopied by atelestorizinstaphones, dances to September in the Rain, waltzes enchanted to When I Fall in Love, Moonlight Serenade...
Moreover, of course, your ears will be twisted into tubes (and quickly and reliably) with a dozen hard modern hits, absolutely indistinguishable from each other, leaving behind a slightly magical state of a white rabbit, slipping on a watermelon crust on the run: ringing emptiness, the world turned upside down, you don't quite remember where you are or who you are.
Lightness and cleanliness.
And it even smells of chlorine, which killed the last microbes of internal culture.
So do you have a personal book of songs?
What do you think to yourself - so without it and live?
For you to understand: the authors in the All-American Songbook of All Time from the 1920s to the 1960s can be counted on the fingers of two hands.
These are the main ones.
Among them, of course, George and Ira Gershwin, Hoagy Carmichael, Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, Duke Ellington, Cole Porter, Johnny Mercer... Several authors from the category of one song.
Very few personalities.
Critically low.
The selection is the most severe - voting with the dollar, ratings, fees from rentals and shows, which means - true popularity.
Go to gallery page
What am I, my dears?
About that - isn't it time for us to take a swing at our, so to speak ... at our Book of Songs?
Why did the Americans cut off, single out just such a period - from the 1920s to the 1960s?
But because the intensity of romanticism there was such - the stars were dragged from the sky and, in addition to donuts, - into every bag!
Or donuts - only with us?
Only we can have donuts in bags (how many were eaten in childhood) ... And then rock and roll came to the States, and the disposition in show business changed a lot.
However... Elvis Presley, the king of kings, performed six standards from the American songbook: Blue Moon, Fools Rush in, Love Letters, I'll Be Home for Christmas, White Christmas and Winter Wonderland - clean, sparkling naphthalene in the moonlight, and the whole world is listening and will listen, mostly with bated breath.
Now look at our, domestic music for films, operettas, look at the pop standards of about the same period (adjusted for Soviet aesthetics, and thanks to it, you can safely and should take it wider - from the 1920s, from the first standards of our jazz, - to 1980s, there were significant things there too).
Compose offhand a giant disk with your favorite compositions (12 will be quite enough) and sing it mentally - in the voice of the star that is closer to your heart.
What will happen?
That's what I'm talking about: that work is not easy.
Thoughtfulness is needed.
Sincerity.
Purity of thoughts, no matter how ridiculous it sounds to many.
Unintentionality and the ability to get a grasp, to get used to history, to the material are needed.
And just then...
It might sound good.
Such that goosebumps.
As from Gradsky in “How young we were”, as from Anna German in “Hope”, as from Magomayev in “Nocturne” ...
And for all that, in order to record a giant disc from our great song heritage with “cheerier things”, you also need to be able to sincerely and provocatively give out both the New Year's “Five Minutes” and the all-weather “Song of Friends”.
Now going uphill, then going down steeply,
Our road lies, and there is no end in sight.
And they will always help you in difficult times
Our faithful hands and girlish hearts! ..
People sometimes decide in five minutes
Never marry for anything
But it happens that a minute
Everything changes very abruptly,
Everything changes once and for all!
Archaic, right?
From the mezzanine - to a clean house, just tidied up! ..
But do you sing along?
Do you even dance?
As long as you're not ashamed...
My good friend, a man of our red convictions, simply and clearly said the other day: "The unconditional measure of taste is Pakhmutova and Dobronravov."
And that's exactly how it is.
And their songs are mentioned in the text.
Go to gallery page
How many such authors do we have?
Is this the caliber?
The main ship?
Yes, too - on the fingers of two hands.
And, of course, there are a lot of those who made one or two songs to the conscience.
See, we have everything.
All in the same powerful standards - with first-class orchestras, with breathtaking vocals, with poetic, and deep, and sensual texts.
There is only one thing missing - the Book of Songs as a cultural and historical-mystical phenomenon.
As a kind of foundation, from which, if you only know how to hear and sing with your heart, you can push off.
I don't know.
I intend to offer knowledgeable people just such a project - the Book of Songs.
And it will be great if one of our greats takes a chance and manages to record such albums.
And so, not to be ashamed.
I remembered the "Songs of the War Years" by Dmitry Hvorostovsky ... I also remembered the following lines:
What is the heart, what is the heart
Upset?
As if the wind touched a string ...
There are many songs about love,
I'll sing to you, I'll sing one more.
Remember where?
Who wrote?
Who sang?
How is it in life?
If he came up with something and told about it with unheard-of impudence, then he himself takes the rap.
Here I will take the rap.
Telling this summer about our great songwriters.
About composers and poets.
About those who do not need "rotation control" and "ratings maintenance".
Good night to you.
Moscow is quiet, the distances have become blue.
The rays of the Kremlin rubies shine brighter...
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.