Cole was exposed to the greats of jazz, soul and blues at an early age and began performing at the age of 11. Her debut album in 1975, Inseparable, won her immediate praise, with the smash single This Will Be (An Everlasting Love) (#1 R&B, #6 Pop) winning her a Grammy for Best R&B Vocal Performance, Female, a category that had been monopolized by Aretha Franklin, since its inception in 1967. She also was named the Grammys' Best New Artist of 1975. She attended the Northfield Mount Hermon School in Northfield, MA.
More hits followed through 1980, including her biggest Pop hit, 1977's I've Got Love On My Mind, as well as Sophisticated Lady (She's A Different Lady) (1976), Our Love (1978), and Someone That I Used To Love (1980). "I've Got Love On My Mind" and "Our Love" both earned certifications as Gold singles. But then her career hit a snag in the early 1980s due to a severe drug problem. By 1985, Natalie was clean, sober, and in fine voice, and ready to begin her comeback in earnest with the album Dangerous, released on the Modern label.
In 1987, she released Everlasting (on EMI Manhattan) which sold over 2 million copies in the U.S., and won Cole a Soul Train Award for Female Single of the Year for the #1 R&B ballad I Live for Your Love. This album was the one that put Natalie Cole firmly back in the spotlight, yielding three major hit singles: Jump Start, "I Live For Your Love" (#2 AC and #13 Pop as well as #1 R&B), and a successful remake of Bruce Springsteen's Pink Cadillac (#5 Pop, #16 AC, and #1 Dance). The album also included a taste of things to come in her career with a remake of one of her father's signature hits, "When I Fall In Love," which did moderately well on the AC chart. In 1989, the aptly-titled Good To Be Back gave her another across-the-board smash with "Miss You Like Crazy" (#1 both R&B and AC, and #7 Pop).
However, it was her 1991 album, Unforgettable... with Love, featuring her own arrangements of her father's greatest hits, that gave her the most success. Ironically, when Natalie began her career, she was determined not to capitalize on her father's name and wanted to forge her own identity by going after the soul market in earnest. For many years, she also found the prospect of recording her late father's songs too painful on a personal level. But Unforgettable... With Love certainly paid off. The set sold over 5 million copies in the United States alone, and won Cole several Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance. The album featured a duet, the title track, with her father, created by splicing a recording of his vocals into the track. As a single, it reached #14 on Billboard Magazine's Hot 100 chart, and went gold. The one sour spot in the album's success was that it strained Natalie's already-tumultuous relationship with her mother, Maria, who said in interviews at the time that she couldn't listen to the album or attend any of her daughter's concerts because she felt that the music really belonged to her late husband.
Natalie has released several more albums of pop standards in the years since; as a result of appealing to the "adult standards" audience, she has made only occasional forays onto the pop singles charts in that time (for example, "A Smile Like Yours," #8 AC and #84 Pop in 1997), although her albums still sell well. Her 1999 album Snowfall On The Sahara marked a return to the easy adult-contemporary soul that categorized her late-1980s hits, but for 2002's critically-praised Ask A Woman Who Knows, she turned more to the jazz side of the spectrum, covering songs made famous by Dinah Washington, Nina Simone, and Sarah Vaughan.
Battle With Drugs
In 2000, Cole released an autobiography, Angel on my Shoulder, which described her battle with drugs during much of her life. In the book, Cole admitted to using LSD, heroin and crack cocaine. Cole said she began experimenting with drugs while attending the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and was arrested in Toronto, Canada for possession of heroin in 1975. Cole continued to spiral out of control - including an incident in which her young son Robert nearly drowned in the family swimming pool while she and her first husband, the late Reverend Marvin Yancy were on a drug binge - until she entered rehab in 1983.
In concert with the release of the book, her autobiography was turned into a made-for-TV movie, The Natalie Cole Story, which aired December 10, 2000 on NBC.
Natalie has been married three times and has a son Robert Yancy (by Marvin Yancy), born in 1977. She later married former Rufus drummer Andre Fischer, who co-produced the Grammy Award-winning Unforgettable... With Love, Natalie's love offering featuring songs made famous by her father, including a faux-duet between her and her father.
The marriage to Fischer ended in divorce a few years later, amidst rumors of domestic verbal and physical abuse.
It has also been reported that Natalie has recovered from a life-threatening hepatitis illness (most likely the cause of her years of drug abuse) by having a liver transplant.
Miss Cole went on to release more albums after Unforgettable...With Love, with most of them featuring jazz-oriented standard songs or pop-song remakes. None of the albums were nearly as successful as Unforgettable...With Love.
As of 2013, Natalie Cole spent most of her professional time covering the concert circuit entertaining audiences around the world with her hits.
On December 31, 2015, Natalie Cole died from congestive heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. She was aged 65.
A Medley of: For Sentimental Reasons Tenderly Autumn Leaves
Natalie Cole Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
I hope you do believe me
I'll give you my heart
I love you and you alone were meant for me
Please give your loving heart to me
And say we'll never part
I think of you every morning
Dream of you every night
Darling, I'm never lonely
Whenever you are in sight
I love you for sentimental reasons
I hope you do believe me
I've given you my heart
The evening breeze caressed the trees tenderly
The trembling trees embraced the breeze tenderly
Then you and I came wandering by
And lost in a sigh were we
The shore was kissed by sea and mist tenderly
I can't forget how two hearts met breathlessly
Your arms opened wide and closed me inside
You took my lips, you took my love so tenderly
The falling leaves drift by the window
The autumn leaves of red and gold
I see your lips, the summer kisses
The sun-burned hands I used to hold
Since you went away the days grow long
And soon I'll hear old winters songBut I miss you most of all my darling
When autumn leaves start to fall
Mais la vie spare ceux qui saiment
Tout doucement sans faire de bruit
But I miss you most of all my darling
When autumn leaves start to fall.
The three songs in Natalie Cole's "A Medley Of: For Sentimental Reasons, Tenderly, Autumn Leaves" are all classic love songs that speak to the enduring nature of love and its many expressions. The lyrics of "For Sentimental Reasons" express a deep and abiding love, rooted in memories and the desire for a lifelong commitment. The singer hopes that her lover feels the same way, and pledges her own heart in the process.
"Tenderly" is a song that describes the intense emotional connection between two people. The natural world around them seems to respond to their love, with even the trees and the breeze embracing one another in a tender dance. The singer evokes a sense of wonder and awe at the power of their feelings, describing their meeting as a moment of profound, breathless excitement.
Finally, "Autumn Leaves" is a melancholy song about lost love, with the changing of the seasons serving as a powerful metaphor for the passing of time and the fading of memories. The singer recalls the passionate moments of their summer romance, but acknowledges that they are gone forever. Even though life moves on, the singer cannot let go of the memory of their lost love, finding solace only in the changing seasons that remind her of what she has lost.
Overall, the medley is a moving tribute to the various forms that love can take, from the tender embrace of two souls in love to the bittersweet memories that remain after a relationship has ended.
Line by Line Meaning
I love you for sentimental reasons
My love for you is based on an emotional attachment.
I hope you do believe me
I want you to trust my feelings for you.
I'll give you my heart
I am offering you all of my love and devotion.
I love you and you alone were meant for me
You are the only one I love and the only one I am meant to be with.
Please give your loving heart to me
I ask that you return my feelings of love and give me your heart as well.
And say we'll never part
Promise me that our love will last forever and we will never be separated.
The evening breeze caressed the trees tenderly
The gentle wind softly touched the trees.
The trembling trees embraced the breeze tenderly
The trees moved and swayed softly in the gentle breeze.
Then you and I came wandering by
We happened to walk near the area.
And lost in a sigh were we
We were overcome with emotion and let out a deep sigh.
The shore was kissed by sea and mist tenderly
The waves and mist gently touched the beach.
I can't forget how two hearts met breathlessly
I will never forget the moment we first fell in love and our hearts raced.
Your arms opened wide and closed me inside
You embraced me with love and affection.
You took my lips, you took my love so tenderly
We shared a gentle and loving kiss, and our love for each other grew stronger.
The falling leaves drift by the window
Leaves from trees outside are blowing past the window.
The autumn leaves of red and gold
The leaves have changed color to shades of red and gold, indicating the season of Autumn.
I see your lips, the summer kisses
I remember the sweet kisses we shared during the summer months.
The sun-burned hands I used to hold
I miss holding your hands, which were once sun-kissed from being outside in the summer.
Since you went away the days grow long
Time seems to move slowly and every day feels like it takes forever since you left.
And soon I'll hear old winters song
Winter is approaching, and I know that it will be a cold and lonely time without you.
But I miss you most of all my darling
Out of everything, I miss you the most, my love.
When autumn leaves start to fall
As the leaves change and fall, my longing for you intensifies.
Mais la vie sépare ceux qui s'aiment
But life separates those who love each other,
Tout doucement sans faire de bruit
Quietly and gently, without making much noise.
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind