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.
It Ain't Necessarily So
Louis Armstrong Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
It ain't necessarily so,
[All]
It ain't necessarily so.
[Sportin' Life:]
De t'ings dat yo li'ble
To read in de Bible -
Lil' David was small, but oh my!
[All]
Lil' David was small, but oh my!
Sportin' Life:
He fought Big Goliath
Who lay down and dieth -
Lil' David was small, but oh my!
Wadoo!
[Ensemble]
Wadoo!
[Sportin' Life]
Zim bam boddle-oo!
[Ensemble]
Zim bam boddle-oo!
[Sportin' Life]
Hoodle ah da waah da!
[Ensemble]
Hoodle ah da waah da!
[Sportin' Life]
Scatty way!
[Ensemble]
Scatty wah!
[Sportin' Life]
Yeah!
Oh Jonah, he lived in de whale
[All]
Oh Jonah, he lived in de whale.
[Sportin' Life]
Fo' he made his home in
Dat fish's abdomen -
Oh Jonah, he lived in de whale.
Lil' Moses was found in a stream
[All]
Lil' Moses was found in a stream
[Sportin' Life]
He floated on water
'Til Ole' Pharaoh's daughter
She fished him, she says from dat stream.
Wadoo!
[Ensemble]
Wadoo!
[Sportin' Life]
Zim bam boddle-oo!
[Ensemble]
Zim bam boddle-oo!
[Sportin' Life]
Hoodle ah da waah da!
[Ensemble]
Hoodle ah da waah da!
[Sportin' Life]
Scatty way!
[Ensemble]
Scatty wah!
[Sportin' Life]
Yeah!
It ain't necessarily so
[All]
It ain't necessarily so
[Sportin' Life]
Dey tell all you chillun
De Debble's a villun
But 'tain't necessarily so.
To get into Hebbben
Don't snap fo' a sebben -
Live clean! Don' have no fault!
Oh, I takes dat gospel
Whenever it's pos'ple -
But wid a grain of salt!
Methus'lah lived nine hundred years,
[All]
Methus'lah lived nine hundred years,
[Sportin' Life]
But who calls dat livin'
When no gal'll give in
To no man what's nine hundred years?
I'm preachin' dis sermon to show
It ain't nessa, ain't nessa,
Ain't nessa, ain't nessa -
[All]
It ain't necessarily so!
The song "It Ain't Necessarily So" is a number from the 1935 opera by George and Ira Gershwin titled "Porgy and Bess." The song is a satirical retelling of several biblical stories that reimagines them as being different from what they are in the bible. The song uses a character named Sportin' Life to mix up the stories, and the ensemble joins in at various points to provide commentary on the stories being told.
The character of Sportin' Life takes creative license with several biblical stories, including the story of David and Goliath, which he tells as "Lil' David was small, but oh my! He fought Big Goliath who lay down and dieth." He also claims that Jonah lived in the belly of a whale and that Methuselah lived for 900 years. The ensemble then chimes in to sing that the devil isn't always a villain, and living cleanly is the way to get into heaven. The song concludes with Sportin' Life preaching that it's not necessarily true that everything in the Bible is accurate.
Line by Line Meaning
It ain't necessarily so,
Sometimes what people say isn't always true.
De t'ings dat yo li'ble
To read in de Bible -
It ain't necessarily so.
The things you read in the Bible may not always be true.
Lil' David was small, but oh my!
Despite his size, David was still very impressive.
He fought Big Goliath
Who lay down and dieth -
Lil' David was small, but oh my!
David fought and defeated Goliath, even though he was much smaller in size.
Wadoo!
Expression of excitement or enthusiasm.
Zim bam boddle-oo!
Non-sensical expression of enthusiasm.
Hoodle ah da waah da!
Non-sensical expression of enthusiasm.
Scatty way!
Non-sensical expression of enthusiasm.
Oh Jonah, he lived in de whale
Jonah was believed to have lived inside a whale.
Fo' he made his home in
Dat fish's abdomen -
Oh Jonah, he lived in de whale.
Jonah lived inside the whale's belly.
Lil' Moses was found in a stream
Moses was found in a stream when he was a baby.
He floated on water
'Til Ole' Pharaoh's daughter
She fished him, she says from dat stream.
Moses floated on the water until he was found by Pharaoh's daughter in the stream.
It ain't necessarily so
Sometimes what people say isn't always true.
Dey tell all you chillun
De Debble's a villun
But 'tain't necessarily so.
People may tell you that the Devil is bad, but it may not always be true.
To get into Hebbben
Don't snap fo' a sebben -
Live clean! Don' have no fault!
In order to get into Heaven, you should live a clean life without any faults.
Oh, I takes dat gospel
Whenever it's pos'ple -
But wid a grain of salt!
I believe the gospel when it makes sense, but I also take it with a grain of salt.
Methus'lah lived nine hundred years,
Methuselah was said to have lived for nine hundred years.
But who calls dat livin'
When no gal'll give in
To no man what's nine hundred years?
Even though Methuselah lived for nine hundred years, it may not have been a full life if he was unable to find a partner.
I'm preachin' dis sermon to show
It ain't nessa, ain't nessa,
Ain't nessa, ain't nessa -
It ain't necessarily so!
I am preaching this sermon to show that things are not always as simple as they seem and may not always be true.
Lyrics © SONGS MUSIC PUBLISHING
Written by: DOROTHY HEYWARD, DU BOSE HEYWARD, GEORGE GERSHWIN, IRA GERSHWIN
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