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!.
In Other Words
Anita O'Day Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
And let me play among the stars
Let me see what spring is like
On Jupiter and Mars
In other words hold my hand
In other words darling kiss me
Fill my life with song
And let me sing forevermore
All I worship and adore
In other words please be true
In other words I love you
repeat 2nd verse, then repeat 1st verse
The song "In Other Words" by Anita O'Day is a classic love song that expresses the longing of the singer to be with their lover in another world. The lyrics begin with the singer asking to be taken to the moon, to see the stars and experience what the other planets feel like. This could be interpreted as a metaphor for wanting to experience new things and go on adventures with their loved one. The singer then asks for their hand to be held and for a kiss, indicating their desire for physical intimacy.
The second verse continues the themes of love and admiration, with the singer declaring that their lover is all they have hoped for and that they worship and adore them. The final line of the verse - "in other words please be true" - seems to express a fear or concern that their love may not be reciprocated, adding a note of vulnerability to the song. The final repetition of the first verse serves to reinforce the theme of longing and the desire to escape to another world with one's beloved.
Line by Line Meaning
Fly me to the moon
Take me on an incredible journey towards an unreachable destination
And let me play among the stars
Allow me to enjoy the beauty of the cosmos in a unique and spectacular way
Let me see what spring is like
Allow me to witness an entirely new and exotic experience
On Jupiter and Mars
In an unbelievably distant and mysterious location
In other words hold my hand
Please offer your comforting and reassuring presence
In other words darling kiss me
Express your love by sharing an intimate moment with me
Fill my life with song
Bring joy and inspiration to my everyday existence
And let me sing forevermore
Grant me the ability to express my emotions through music
You are all I hope for
You are the source of my optimism and happiness
All I worship and adore
I hold you in the highest regard and cherish you deeply
In other words please be true
I entrust you with my heart and ask that you remain loyal and honest
In other words I love you
Simply put, I am deeply in love with you
Fly me to the moon
Once again, take me on a wondrous adventure through the galaxy
And let me play among the stars
And allow me to revel in the beauty of the cosmos once more
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA/AMCOS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Aceiseverywhere
on Who Cares?
Let it rain and thunder
Let a million firms go under
I am not concerned with, stocks and bombs that I've been burned with
I love you and you love me
And that's how it will always be
And nothing else can ever mean a thing
Who cares what the public chatters?
Love's the only thing that matters
Who cares if the sky, cares to fall
in the sea
Who cares how history rates me?
As long as your kiss intoxicates me
Oh why should I care?
Life is one long jubilee
As long as I care for you
And you care for me!
Who cares if the sky, cares to fall
in the sea
Who cares what banks fail in Yonkers?
As long as you've got a kiss that conquers!
Oh why should I care?
Life is one long jubilee
So long as I care for you
and you care for me!
(These lyrics might be wrong, sorry)