As a piano player, he formed a jazz trio in 1938 that played Los Angeles nightclubs, one of the first jazz trios featuring guitar and piano. Prior to this he had played music since he was a child and had worked with bands since he was sixteen. He was raised in Chicago and exposed to the abundant jazz scene there. He was heavily influenced by pianist Earl "Fatha" Hines.
Later he became more popularly known as a singer and crooner and his work became more orchestrated.
His first mainstream vocal hit was in 1944 with Straighten Up and Fly Right, based on a black folk tale that his father had used as a theme for a sermon. Although hardly a rocker, the song's success proved that an audience for folk-based material existed. It is considered a predecessor to the first rock and roll records. Indeed, Bo Diddley, who performed similar transformations of folk material, counted Cole as an influence.
Beginning in the late 1940s, Cole began recording and performing more pop-oriented material for mainstream audiences, often accompanied by a string orchestra. His stature as a popular icon was cemented during this period with such hits as The Christmas Song (1946), Nature Boy (1948), Mona Lisa (1950), and his signature tune Unforgettable (1951). While this shift to pop music led some jazz critics and fans to accuse Cole of selling out, he never totally abandoned his musical roots; as late as 1956, for instance, he recorded an all-jazz album, After Midnight. In 1991, Mosaic Records released the Complete Nat King Cole Trio Recordings on Capitol, which contained 349 songs on twenty-seven LPs or eighteen CDs.
Throughout the 1950s Cole continued to rack up hit after hit, including Smile, Pretend, A Blossom Fell, and If I May. Most of his pop hits were collaborations with famed arranger/conductor Nelson Riddle. It was with Riddle that Cole released his first ten-inch long-play album in 1953 entitled Sings for Two in Love. Several more albums followed, including the Gordon Jenkins arranged Love Is the Thing, which reached number one on the album charts in April 1957.
Inspired by a trip to Havana, Cuba in 1958, Nat went back there that same year and recorded Cole Espanol, an album sung entirely in Spanish and Portuguese. The album was a hit not only in the U.S., but in Latin America as well. The album was so popular, that two others followed: A mis amigos in 1959, and More Cole Espanol in 1962.
Musical tastes were changing in the late 1950s, and despite a successful stab at rock n' roll with Send for Me, Cole's ballad singing had grown old to younger listeners. Like contemporaries Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett, Nat found that the pop singles chart had been almost entirely taken over by youth oriented acts. In 1960, Nat's longtime collaborator Nelson Riddle, left Capitol Records for Frank Sinatra's newly formed Reprise Records label. The two parted ways with one final hit album Wild Is Love, based on lyrics by Ray Rasch and Dotty Wayne. Nat would later re-tool the concept album into an off-Broadway production called I'm With You.
As the 1960s progressed, Nat once again found success on the American singles chart, starting with the country/pop flavored hit Ramblin' Rose in August of 1962. Three more hit singles followed: Dear Lonely Hearts, Those Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer, and That Sunday, That Summer. Nat's final album was entitled L.O.V.E, and was recorded in late 1964. It was released just prior to his death and reached number four on the Billboard Albums chart in the spring of 1965. A "Best Of" album went gold in 1968. His 1957 song When I Fall in Love was a chart topping hit for the U.K. in 1987.
Cole was the first African-American to have his own radio program. He repeated that success in the late-1950s with the first truly national television show starring an African-American. In both cases, the programs were ultimately canceled because sponsors shied away from a black artist. Cole fought racism all his life, refusing to perform in segregated venues. In 1956, he was attacked on stage in Birmingham, Alabama by members of the White Citizens' Council who apparently were attempting to kidnap him. Despite injuries, Cole completed the show but vowed never to perform in the South again.
On 23rd August 1956, Cole spoke at the Republican National Convention in the Cow Palace, San Francisco, California. He was also present at the Democratic National Convention in 1960, to throw his support behind President John F. Kennedy. Cole was also among the dozens of entertainers recruited by Frank Sinatra to perform at the Kennedy Inaugural gala in 1961. Nat King Cole frequently consulted with President Kennedy (and later President Johnson) on the issue of civil rights. Yet he was dogged by critics, who felt he shied away from controversy when it came to the civil rights issue. Among the most notable was Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, who was upset that Cole didn't take stronger action after the 1956 on-stage attack.
In 1948, Cole purchased a house in the all-white Hancock Park neighborhood in Los Angeles, California. The property owners association told Cole they didn't want any undesirables moving in, to which Cole retorted "Neither do I. And if I see anybody undesirable coming in here, I'll be the first to complain."
He and his second wife, Maria Ellington, were married in Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church by Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. They had five children, including twin girls. Daughter Carol Cole, and son Kelly Cole were adopted. Kelly Cole died in 1995. Nat's daughter, Natalie Cole, and his younger brother, Freddie Cole are also singers.
Natalie and her father had an unexpected hit in the summer of 1991. The younger Cole mixed a 1961 recording of her father's rendition of Unforgettable with her own voice, creating an electronic duet. Both the song and the album of the same name won several Grammy awards the following year.
Cole performed in many short films, and played W. C. Handy in the film Saint Louis Blues. He also appeared in The Nat King Cole Story, China Gate, and The Blue Gardenia.
Nat King Cole was a heavy smoker of Kool menthol cigarettes, believing that smoking up to three packs a day gave his voice the rich sound it had (Cole would smoke several cigarettes in rapid succession before a recording for this very purpose). Cole died of lung cancer at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, California, on 15th February 1965. His funeral was held at St. Victor's Catholic Church in West Hollywood, and he was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. Cat Ballou, his final film, was released several months later.
Why
Nat King Cole Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
The boulevard of broken dreams
Where gigolo and gigolette can take a kiss without regret
So they forget their broken dreams
You laugh tonight and cry tomorrow
When you behold your shattered schemes
And gigolo and gigolette, wake up to find their eyes are wet
Here is where you'll always find me
Always walking up and down
But I left my soul behind me
In an old cathedral town
The joy you find here, you borrow
You cannot keep it long, it seems
But gigolo and gigolette still sing a song and dance along
The boulevard of broken dreams
Here is where you'll always find me
Always walking up and down
But I left my soul behind me
In an old cathedral town
The joy you find here, you borrow
You cannot keep it long, it seems
But gigolo and gigolette still sing a song and dance along
The boulevard of broken dreams
Don by Nat King Cole is a song that explores the heart-breaking reality of broken dreams. In the first verse, we hear about the sorrowful journey through the boulevard of broken dreams, a street where people who have lost their way come to wander. The line "gigolo and gigolette can take a kiss without regret" suggests that the journey is not limited to just physical space but is also an emotional state where people put on a facade of happiness to escape the pain of their shattered dreams. The words also suggest that the people here take comfort in each other's company and enjoy each other's physical intimacy, but are always aware that this escape is temporary and won't heal their shattered dreams.
The second verse paints a sad picture of the people's lives, describing the sorrow that comes after laughter--"You laugh tonight and cry tomorrow, when you behold your shattered schemes". The song goes on to say that despite the tears and heartaches, the people find themselves walking the boulevard yet again. The chorus reinforces the sense of longing and desperation by saying that the joy found here is only temporary, and they cannot keep it long, and the only thing that remains constant is the brokenness, even though they try to put on a show by singing and dancing along.
The third verse, however, is where this desperate journey takes a different turn. The singer reveals that they have left their soul behind them in an old cathedral town. This statement reveals a deep insight into the person's life, suggesting that despite the chaos and the brokenness all around, the person has found their anchor in a higher power or something beyond themselves, which gives them the hope they need to carry on.
Line by Line Meaning
I walk along the street of sorrow
I stroll down a bleak and depressing path
The boulevard of broken dreams
The road littered with shattered aspirations
Where gigolo and gigolette can take a kiss without regret
Where hired companions can kiss without guilt
So they forget their broken dreams
To distract themselves from their ruined ambitions
You laugh tonight and cry tomorrow
You're happy now but will soon weep
When you behold your shattered schemes
When you see your hopes are destroyed
And gigolo and gigolette, wake up to find their eyes are wet
And hired companions are surprised to find tears in their eyes
With tears that tell of broken dreams.
Which reveal their failed aspirations
Here is where you'll always find me
This is where I can always be located
Always walking up and down
I'm constantly moving around
But I left my soul behind me
I've abandoned my true self
In an old cathedral town
In a traditional and spiritual place
The joy you find here, you borrow
The happiness is only temporary
You cannot keep it long, it seems
It's fleeting and cannot be maintained
But gigolo and gigolette still sing a song and dance along
Yet hired companions still keep up a facade of happiness
The boulevard of broken dreams
On the path of misplaced aspirations
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Bluewater Music Corp., Peermusic Publishing, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: Fred Ahlert, Roy Turk
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
john
on A Blossom Fell
i want the song" I'll never settle for less" lyrics,would somebody be so kind to give it to me?