Carter was born Lillie Mae Jones on 16th May 1929 in Flint, Michigan and grew up in Detroit, where her father led a church choir. She studied piano at the Detroit Conservatory. She won a talent contest and became a regular on the local club circuit, singing and playing piano. When she was sixteen, she sang with Charlie Parker. She later performed with Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis and toured with Lionel Hampton (from whom she received the nickname "Betty Bebop"), when she perfected her scat singing of bebop.
Her career was eclipsed somewhat during the 1960s and 1970s, though a series of duets with Ray Charles in 1961, including the R&B-chart-topping "Baby, It's Cold Outside", brought her a measure of popular recognition. She recorded for various labels during this period, including Peacock, ABC-Paramount, and Atco, but was rarely satisfied with the resulting product. An episode in which a record company A&R man tried to abscond with a set of her master recordings led her to establish her own record label, Bet-Car, in 1970. Some of her most outstanding recordings were first issued on Bet-Car, including the double album The Audience with Betty Carter (1980). She was well-received at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1977 and 1978. In 1987 Carter signed with Verve Records. She won a Grammy in 1988 for her album Look What I Got! and sang in a guest appearance on The Cosby Show in that year.
She died on 26th September 1998.
Remember
Betty Carter Lyrics
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The night you said, "I love you"
Remember?
Remember you vowed
By all the stars above you
Remember?
And after I learned to care a lot
You promised that you'd forget me not
But you forgot to remember
Remember we found a lonely spot
And after I learned to care a lot
You promised that you'd forget me not
But you forgot to
You forgot to
You forgot to
Remember
Betty Carter's song "Remember" is a poignant and emotional ballad that speaks to the feeling of heartbreak and betrayal that can follow when one's partner forgets a promise. The lyrics begin by asking the listener to recall a specific moment, "the night you said, 'I love you'", before building a sense of climactic and romantic momentum with the line "you vowed by all the stars above you."
However, the mood quickly shifts as the song reveals that this love was superficial and meaningless to the other person. The lines "after I learned to care a lot / you promised that you'd forget me not" build tension as the listener anticipates some sort of resolution or happy ending, only to be met with the final jagged repetition of "you forgot to remember." The message is clear: promises, no matter how grand or meaningful, can be broken and forgotten.
Overall, "Remember" is a timeless and heartbreaking classic that speaks to the universal human experience of betrayal and disappointment.
Line by Line Meaning
Remember the night
Recall the particular evening
The night you said, "I love you"
The night when you expressed your love towards me
Remember?
Do you remember it?
Remember you vowed
Recall the commitment you made
By all the stars above you
By the celestial objects that shine
Remember?
Do you remember it?
Remember we found a lonely spot
Recall the place where we found solitude
And after I learned to care a lot
Once I began to have strong affection for you
You promised that you'd forget me not
You made a promise to always remember me
But you forgot to remember
However, you failed to keep your promise to recall me
Remember we found a lonely spot
Recall the place where we found solitude
And after I learned to care a lot
Once I began to have strong affection for you
You promised that you'd forget me not
You made a promise to always remember me
But you forgot to
However, you failed to
You forgot to
You did not remember
You forgot to
You did not recall
Remember
Recall it now
Writer(s): IRVING BERLIN
Contributed by Ryan J. Suggest a correction in the comments below.