Favorite Song Fridays IV

 Feist, "Now at Last"

While I was home this summer I went to a coffeehouse-type gig with my mom, where she plays some Sundays with a group of friends of hers. She wasn't playing that day, so we ate bagels and sat in the cafe to listen. A friend of hers was there, and he proved quite obnoxious, talking through the songs and bragging about his musical ability and knowledge. My mom mentioned that I sang jazz (sometimes), and he looked down his nose at me: "Oh really? Well, what old standards do you sing?" I don't keep a set list ready in my mind to sell my singer-self to people on the spot, so I said something like "Off the top of my head...I don't know...I do most of the old standards, and the ones I don't have prepared I can fake pretty OK..." After more pressing I mentioned "Moonlight Becomes You," "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye," and "The Nearness of You." At the last he scoffed, triumphant in his arrogance: "Well nowadays all the young people do that since Norah Whats-Her-Name [Jones] did it." Um no, sorry sir. I have been singing that song since I was about 12 and could figure out the chord progressions in my jazz fakebook. 

Anyway, this little rant serves as a very long introduction to today's song, which is not a very well-known old jazz tune but has all the feeling of a favorite. This is probably because it was written by Bob Haymes, who also wrote "That's All," which has been done by the likes of Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin, and more recently, Michael Buble. 

This past fall I was listening to "Now at Last" pretty much nonstop, and was itching to get my fingers on a piano keyboard to accompany myself once I got home for Christmas. Sure enough, I spent many hours playing piano and singing while I was home for the holidays, and this has quickly become one of my all-time favorite "old standards." The song is so very simple and traditional, but so beautiful and unexpected at the same time. I love the way Feist sings it -- I think she does it wonderful justice, no frills, no belting, just the gorgeous melody with a healthy dose of the melancholy with which the lyrics and tune are infused. She is one of my very favorite artists these days -- so creative, original, talented, and fun -- and became even more of a preferred and respected artist once I found this little gem on her 2004 album "Let it Die."