Coming to prominence in the 1920s as an inventive trumpet and cornet player, Armstrong was a foundational influence in jazz, shifting the focus of the music from collective improvisation to solo performance. With his instantly-recognizable gravelly voice, Armstrong was also an influential singer, demonstrating great dexterity as an improviser, bending the lyrics and melody of a song for expressive purposes. He was also skilled at scat singing (vocalizing using sounds and syllables instead of actual lyrics).
Renowned for his charismatic stage presence and voice almost as much as for his trumpet-playing, Armstrong's influence extends well beyond jazz music, and by the end of his career in the 1960s, he was widely regarded as a profound influence on popular music in general. Armstrong was one of the first truly popular African-American entertainers to "cross over", whose skin-color was secondary to his music in an America that was severely racially divided. He rarely publicly politicized his race, often to the dismay of fellow African-Americans, but took a well-publicized stand for desegregation during the Little Rock Crisis. His artistry and personality allowed him socially acceptable access to the upper echelons of American society that were highly restricted for a black man.
Armstrong was born and brought up in New Orleans, a culturally diverse town with a unique musical mix of creole, ragtime, marching bands, and blues. Although from an early age he was able to play music professionally, he didn't travel far from New Orleans until 1922, when he went to Chicago to join his mentor, King Oliver. Oliver's band played primitive jazz, a hotter style of ragtime, with looser rhythms and more improvisation, and Armstrong's role was mostly backing. Slow to promote himself, he was eventually persuaded by his wife Lil Hardin to leave Oliver, and In 1924 he went to New York to join the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra. At the time, there were a few other artists using the rhythmic innovations of the New Orleans style, but none did it with the energy and brilliance of Armstrong, and he quickly became a sensation among New York musicians. Back in Chicago in 1925, he made his first recordings with his own group, Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five, and these became not only popular hits but also models for the first generation of jazz musicians, trumpeters or otherwise.
Other hits followed through the twenties and thirties, as well as troubles: crooked managers, lip injuries, mob entanglements, failed big-band ventures. As jazz styles changed, though, musical purists never lost any respect for him -- although they were sometimes irritated by his hammy onstage persona. Around the late forties, with the help of a good manager, Armstrong's business affairs finally stablilized, and he began to be seen as an elder statesman of American popular entertainment, appearing in Hollywood films, touring Asia and Europe, and dislodging The Beatles from the number-one position with Hello Dolly". Today many people may know him as a singer (a good one), but as Miles Davis said: “You can’t play nothing on modern trumpet that doesn’t come from him."
The 62-year-old Armstrong became the oldest act to top the US charts when "Hello Dolly" reached #1 in 1964. Four years later Satchmo also became the oldest artist to record a UK #1, when "What a Wonderful World" hit the top spot.
Baby Won´t You Please Come Home
Louis Armstrong Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
I'd give the world if I could only
Make you understand
It truly would be grand
I'm gonna telephone my baby
Ask him won't you please come home
Oh, when you gone
I'm worried all day long
Baby, won't you please come home
Baby, won't you please come home
I have tried in vain
Nevermore to call your name
When you left you broke my heart
That will never make us part
Every hour in the day
You will hear me say
Baby, won't you please come home
I mean, baby, won't you please come home
Baby, won't you please come home
'Cause your mama's all alone
I have tried in vain
Nevermore to call your name
When you left you broke my heart
That will never make us part
Landlord's gettin' worse
I gotta move May the first
Baby, won't you please come home
I need money
Baby, won't you please come home
The opening lines of the song Baby Won’t You Please Come Home, can be described as a traditional blues lament, where the singer expresses deep feelings of loneliness and the desire for the one they love to return to them. The yearning for connection is tangible in the lyrics “I’d give the world if I could only make you understand, it truly would be grand”. The theme of longing is further emphasized in the lines “When you gone, I’m worried all day long”. The repetition of the phrase “Baby won’t you please come home” throughout the entire song is a clear indication of how important the subject of the song is to the singer.
As the song progresses, it is revealed that the singer has been trying to reach out to their beloved without success, “I have tried in vain, nevermore to call your name”. The singer seems to be helpless, and their emotional pain caused by the absence of the one they love is expressed in the lines “When you left you broke my heart, that will never make us part”. The depiction of the character's circumstances is vivid when the singer expresses their financial troubles with lines like “Landlords getting worse, I gotta move May the first, I need money”.
Overall, Baby Won’t You Please Come Home is a classic blues song that portrays the heartfelt suffering of a lover who is separated from their beloved. The lyrics capture the ache of lost love and evoke feelings of longing, heartbreak, and desperation.
Line by Line Meaning
I've got the blues, I feel so lonely
I am feeling sad and lonely
I'd give the world if I could only make you understand
I would do anything to make you understand what I am going through
It truly would be grand
It would be incredibly great if you could understand me
I'm gonna telephone my baby
I am going to call my lover
Ask him won't you please come home
I am going to ask my lover to please come home
Oh, when you gone I'm worried all day long
I get anxious and worried when you are gone
Baby, won't you please come home
I am begging my lover to come home
I have tried in vain, Nevermore to call your name
I have tried without success to call out your name
When you left you broke my heart, That will never make us part
When you left, you broke my heart but that will not make us separated
Every hour in the day, You will hear me say
I keep saying every hour of the day
Baby, won't you please come home
I am pleading with my lover to come back home
I mean, baby, won't you please come home
I really want you back home
'Cause your mama's all alone
Your mother is alone
Landlord's gettin' worse, I gotta move May the first
The landlord is being difficult, and I have to move out on May 1st
I need money, Baby, won't you please come home
I need money, so can you please come back home?
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: MACK GORDON, JOSEF MYROW
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Anonymous
on What A Wonderful World
What A Wonderful World - Casey Abrams - Lyrics
I see trees of green
Red roses too
I see them bloom
For me and you
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
I see skies of blue
And clouds of white
The bright blessed day
The dark sacred night
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
The colors of the rainbow
So pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces
Of people going by
I see friends shaking hands
Singing how do you do
They're really singing
I love you
I hear babies cry
I watch them grow
They'll learn much more
Than I'll ever know
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
Musical Interlude
The colors of the rainbow
So pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces
Of people going by
I see friends shaking hands
Singing how do you do
They're really singing
I love you
I hear babies cry
I watch them grow
They goin’ learn much more
Than I'll ever know
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
I think to myself
What a wonderful world