Helen Merrill (born Jelena Ana Milcetic on July 21, 1930 in New York City) … Read Full Bio ↴Helen Merrill (born Jelena Ana Milcetic on July 21, 1930 in New York City) is an internationally known jazz vocalist.
Merrill's recording career has spanned six decades and she is popular with fans of jazz in Japan and Italy (where she lived for many years) as well as in her native United States. She has recorded and performed with some of the most notable figures in the American jazz scene.

Youth and early career in the states

Merrill was born in 1930 to Croatian immigrant parents. She began singing in jazz clubs in the Bronx at the age of fourteen. By the time she was sixteen, Merrill had taken up music full time. In 1952, Merrill made her recording debut when she was asked to sing "A Cigarette For Company" with the Earl Hines Band; the song was released on their Xanadu album. Etta Jones made her debut on the same album.
At this time she was married to musician Aaron Sachs. They divorced in 1956.
As a result of the exposure she received from "A Cigarette for Company" and two subsequent singles recorded for the Roost record label, Merrill was signed by Mercury Records for their new EmArcy label.
In 1954, Merrill recorded her first (and to date most acclaimed) LP, an eponymous record featuring legendary jazz trumpet player Clifford Brown and bassist/cellist Oscar Pettiford, among others. It was to be one of Brown's last recordings, as he was killed in a car accident just two years later. The album was produced and arranged by Quincy Jones, who was then just twenty-one years old. The success of Helen Merrill prompted Mercury to sign her for an additional four-album contract.
Merrill's follow-up to Helen Merrill was the 1956 LP, Dream of You, which was produced and arranged by bebop arranger and pianist Gil Evans. Evans' work on Dream of You was his first in many years. His arrangements on Merrill's laid the musical foundations for his work in following years with Miles Davis.

Success abroad

After recording sporadically through the late 1950s and 1960s, Merrill spent much of her time touring Europe, where she enjoyed more commercial success than she had in the United States. She settled for a time in Italy recording an album there, and doing live concerts with jazz notables Chet Baker, Romano Mussolini, and Stan Getz. Merrill returned to the U.S. in the 1960s, but moved to Japan in 1967 after touring there. Merrill developed a following in Japan that remains strong to this day. In addition to recording while in Japan, Merrill became involved in other aspects of the music industry, producing albums for Trio Records and hosting a show on a Tokyo radio station.

Later career

Merrill returned to the US in 1972 and has continued recording and regular touring since then. Her later career has seen her experiment in different music genres. She has recorded a bossa nova album, a Christmas album and a record's worth of Rodgers and Hammerstein, among many others.
Two albums from Merrill's later career have been tributes to past musical partners. In 1987, Merrill and Gil Evans recorded fresh arrangements of their classic Dream of You; the new recordings were released under the title Collaboration and became the most critically acclaimed of Merrill's albums in the 1980s.
In 1987 she co-produced a CD "Billy Eckstine sing with Benny Carter" and sing in duet with Mr.B two ballads.
In 1995 she recorded Brownie: Homage to Clifford Brown as a tribute to the late trumpeter.
One of Merrill's millennium released recordings draws from her Croatian heritage as well as her American upbringing. Jelena Ana Milcetic, a.k.a. Helen Merrill (2000), combines jazz, pop and blues songs with several traditional Croatian songs sung in Croatian.
Helen Merrill has been married three times, first to musician Aaron Sachs, second time to UPI vice president the late Donald J Brydon, and third to arranger-conductor the late Torrie Zito. She has one child, a son, Allan P Sachs, also a singer, who is professionally known as Alan Merrill.

Softly as in a morning sunrise
Helen Merrill Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

Love came to me
Gay and tender
Love came to me
Sweet surrender
Love came to me
In bright romantic splendor
Fickle was she
Faithful never

Fickle was she
And clever
So will it be forever forever
Softly, as in a morning sunrise
The light of love comes stealing
Into a new born day, oh
Flaming with all the glow of sunrise
A burning kiss is sealing
The vow that all betray
For the passions that thrill love
And lift you high to heaven
Are the passions that kill love
And let you fall to hell
So ends the story
Softly, as in an evening sunset

The light that gave you glory
Will take it all away

Overall Meaning

The lyrics of Helen Merrill's song “Softly as in a morning sunrise” depicts the theme of love and how it can be both beautiful and cruel. The song starts with a description of how the persona fell in love with someone who was happy and tender. Love came to them in a sweet and surrendered way in bright romantic splendor, but their love interest proved to be fickle and unfaithful. Despite this, the persona declares that their fickle love will last forever.

The lyrics of the chorus carry a contrasting view. It compares love to the softness of a morning sunrise, which steals in on a newborn day with a flaming glow, and seals the vow that all love affairs betray before ending in a harsh climax like the setting sun. The passions that thrill lovers and lift them high can also kill the love and let them fall to hell.

The song depicts how love can be both beautiful and malicious, just like the rising sun of a new day that creates hope and joy, and the setting sun of the dying day that takes away all its glory. The lyrics give insight into the complexities of human love, which can be both delightful and may turn tragic if not handled with care.

Line by Line Meaning

Love came to me
I experienced the feeling of love

Gay and tender
It was lively and gentle

Sweet surrender
I gave in to love completely

In bright romantic splendor
The love was shining brightly and romantically

Fickle was she
The love was unfaithful and unreliable

Faithful never
The love never stayed loyal or true

And clever
The love was cunning and sly

So will it be forever forever
This is how it will always be

Softly, as in a morning sunrise
Love arrives gently like a sunrise

The light of love comes stealing
It creeps up on you silently

Into a new born day, oh
When you least expect it

Flaming with all the glow of sunrise
It ignites with the intense brightness of the sun

A burning kiss is sealing
It seals the deal with a passionate kiss

The vow that all betray
Love promises that are often broken

For the passions that thrill love
The intense emotions that excite love

And lift you high to heaven
That take you to cloud nine

Are the passions that kill love
These same passions can destroy love

And let you fall to hell
And leave you in despair

So ends the story
And that's how it all comes to an end

Softly, as in an evening sunset
Love disappears softly like a sunset

The light that gave you glory
The love that used to make you feel great

Will take it all away
Will strip it all from you

Lyrics © Wixen Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group, CONCORD MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Royalty Network, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN, II, OSCAR II HAMMERSTEIN, SIGMUND ROMBERG

Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind

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