Anita O'Day (October 18, 1919 - November 23, 2006) was an American jazz sin… Read Full Bio ↴Anita O'Day (October 18, 1919 - November 23, 2006) was an American jazz singer.

Few female jazz singers matched the hard-swinging and equally hard-living Anita O'Day for sheer exuberance and talent in all areas of jazz vocals. Her improvising, wide dynamic tone, and innate sense of rhythm made her more than just another big-band canary. At a time when most female vocals tended to emphasize the sweet timbres of their voice, she chose to emphasize a path blazed by the one major jazz singer who emphasized message over medium - Billie Holiday. Like Holiday, O'Day combined the soaring freedom of jazz instrumentalist with the storytelling lyricism of a poet.

After making her solo debut in the mid-'40s she incorporated bop modernism into her vocals and recorded over a dozen of the best vocal LPs of the era.

During the late Forties, she recorded two dozen sides, mostly for small labels. The quality of these singles varies: O'Day was trying to achieve popular success without sacrificing her identity as a jazz singer. Among the more notable recordings from this period are "Hi Ho Trailus Boot Whip", "Key Largo", "How High the Moon", and "Malaguena". O'Day's drug problems began to surface late in 1947, when she and husband Carl Hoff were arrested for possession of marijuana and sentenced to 90 days in jail. Her career was back on the upswing in September of 1948, when she sang with Count Basie at the Royal Roost in New York City, resulting in five airchecks. What secured O'Day's place in the jazz pantheon, however, are the seventeen albums she recorded for Verve between 1956 and 1962.

Her first album, Anita O'Day Sings Jazz (reissued as The Lady Is a Tramp), was recorded in 1956 for the newly established Verve Records (it was also the label's first LP). The album was a critical success and further boosted her popularity. In October of 1952 O'Day was again arrested for possession of marijuana, but found not guilty. The following March, she was arrested for possession of heroin. The case dragged on for most of 1953; O'Day was finally sentenced to six months in jail. Not long after her release from jail on February 25, 1954, she began work on her second album, Songs by Anita O'Day (reissued as An Evening with Anita O'Day). She recorded steadily throughout the Fifties, accompanied by small combos and big bands. In person, O'Day was generally backed by a trio which included the drummer with whom she would work for the next 40 years, John Poole.

As a live performer O'Day also began performing in festivals and concerts with such musicians as Louis Armstrong, Oscar Peterson, Dinah Washington, George Shearing, Cal Tjader, and Thelonious Monk. She appeared in the documentary Jazz on a Summer's Day, filmed at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival which increased her popularity. The following year O'Day made a cameo appearance in The Gene Krupa Story , singing "Memories of You". Late in 1959 she toured Europe with Benny Goodman; according to her autobiography, when Goodman's attempts to upstage her failed to diminish the audience's enthusiasm, he cut all but two of her numbers from the show.

After the Goodman fiasco, O'Day went back to touring as a solo artist. She recorded infrequently after the expiration of her Verve contract in 1962 and her career seemed over when she nearly died of a heroin overdose in 1968. After kicking the habit, she made a comeback at the 1970 Berlin Jazz Festival. She also appeared in the films Zig Zag (1970) and The Outfit (1974). She resumed making live and studio albums, many recorded in Japan, and several were released on her own label, Emily Records.

O'Day spoke candidly about her drug addiction in her 1981 memoir, High Times, Hard Times.

Her version of the standard, "Sing, Sing, Sing" was remixed by RSL and was included in the compilation album Verve Remixed 3 in 2005.

2006 saw her first album release in 13 years, entitled Indestructible!.

Anita: I'll See You In My Dreams
Anita O'Day Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

I'll see you in my dreams
And I'll hold you in my dreams
Someone took you right out of my arms
Still I feel the thrill of your charms

Lips that once were mine
Tender eyes that shine
They will light my way tonight

I'll see you in my dreams

Oh, someone took you right out of my arms
Still I feel the thrill of your charms

Lips that once were mine
Tender eyes that shine

They will light my way tonight
I'll see you in my dreams

Overall Meaning

The song "I'll See You In My Dreams" by Anita O'Day is a heartbreaking yet hopeful ballad about longing for someone who is no longer present. The lyrics describe the singer's sadness after someone has been taken away from her, yet the comfort she still finds in the memories of the person. She speaks of seeing this person in her dreams and holding them close, but also acknowledges the pain of knowing they are no longer with her. Despite this, she finds solace in the tender memories of the person's lips and eyes that continue to shine and light her way.

The repetition of the lines "someone took you right out of my arms" emphasizes the singer's feeling of loss and emphasizes how sudden and unexpected the departure was. However, the fact that she still feels the thrill of the person's charms indicates that the connection she had with them was genuine and powerful. The lyrics also suggest that the singer is unwilling to let go of the person completely, as she constantly seeks comfort in their memory and presence in her dreams.

Overall, the song captures the bittersweet feeling of losing someone while still holding on to the memory of them. It is a reminder that even in the midst of heartbreak, there can still be hope and comfort found in the memories of those we have loved.

Line by Line Meaning

I'll see you in my dreams
Even though you are no longer with me in reality, I'll hold onto you in my mind when I go to sleep at night

And I'll hold you in my dreams
Within my dreams, I'll embrace you and keep you close to me

Someone took you right out of my arms
Even though someone else came and took you away from me, I can still feel the sensation of having you in my arms

Still I feel the thrill of your charms
Your magnetic personality and charisma still stir up excitement and enthusiasm within me

Lips that once were mine
I vividly remember the sensation of your soft, delicate lips against mine

Tender eyes that shine
Your gentle, sparkling eyes are a reflection of the beauty within you that I admired so much

They will light my way tonight
Even though you're gone, the memory of your eyes will guide me through the darkness of my sorrows

I'll see you in my dreams
The thought of you will always stay with me, and I'll continue to hold onto our cherished memories in my dreams

Lyrics © DistroKid, Kanjian Music, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: Gus Kahn, Isham Jones

Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind

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