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.
Nobody Knows the Way I Feel Dis Mornin'
Louis Armstrong Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
This morning, this morning
Nobody knows the way I feel
This morning, this morning
If I'd only had my way
The graveyard would be the place
My man would lay
I feel like I could scream and cry
This morning, this morning
I feel like I could scream and cry
This morning, this morning
I feel like I could scream and cry
I'm true out on it or I'd rather die
Nobody knows the way I feel this morning
I even hate to hear your name
This morning, this morning
I even hate to hear your name
This morning, this morning
I even hate to hear your name
I could kill you and take a brown eyed express train
Nobody knows the way I feel this morning
The lyrics of Louis Armstrong and King Oliver's song Nobody Knows The Way I Feel This Morning convey a deep sense of despair and heartbreak. The singer is in such pain that they wish their loved one was dead and buried in the graveyard. The repetition of the phrase "this morning" emphasizes the immediacy and urgency of their emotions. The singer feels like they could scream and cry or even kill someone if they hear the name of the person they're missing so much. The song captures the raw emotions of heartbreak and how it can cloud our judgment and make us feel like there's no escape from the pain.
Overall, the lyrics of Nobody Knows The Way I Feel This Morning are a powerful testament to the intensity of heartbreak and the way it can make us feel like there's no hope left. It's a song that speaks to anyone who has ever gone through a difficult breakup or experienced the pain of losing a loved one.
Line by Line Meaning
Nobody knows the way I feel
This morning, this morning
I am feeling a certain way this morning that nobody else could understand or possibly relate to.
If I'd only had my way
The graveyard would be the place
My man would lay
Nobody knows the way I feel this morning
I am feeling extremely heartbroken and if I had my way, I would want my man to be buried in the grave so that we could be together even in death.
I feel like I could scream and cry
This morning, this morning
I feel like I could scream and cry
This morning, this morning
I am so overwhelmed with sadness that I feel like I could let it out through screaming and crying.
I feel like I could scream and cry
I'm true out on it or I'd rather die
Nobody knows the way I feel this morning
I am so deeply hurt that I would rather die than continue to feel this way.
I even hate to hear your name
This morning, this morning
I even hate to hear your name
This morning, this morning
The sound of your name even makes me feel more pained and I can't bear to hear it.
I even hate to hear your name
I could kill you and take a brown eyed express train
Nobody knows the way I feel this morning
The thought of you makes me so angry that I could even commit murder and leave town on a brown eyed express train.
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: PEARL DELANEY, TOM DELANEY
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