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.
Darling Je Vous Aime Beaucoup
Natalie Cole Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Je ne sais pas what to do
You know you've completely
Stolen my heart
Morning, noon and night-time too
Toujours, wondering what to do
That's the way I've felt
Ah, Cherie!
My love for you is tr?s, tr?s fort
Wish my French were good enough
I'd tell you so much more
But I hope that you compree
All the things you mean to me
Darling, je vous aime beaucoup
I love you, yes I do
Wish my French were good enough
I'd tell you so much more
But I hope that you compree
All the things you mean to me
Darling, je vous aime beaucoup
I love you, yes I do
(Darling, je vous aime beaucoup)
I love you, yes I do
The lyrics to Natalie Cole's "Darling Je Vous Aime Beaucoup" are a confession of love and admiration for a special someone. The song starts off with the singer expressing her uncertainty and confusion towards this person, "Je ne sais pas what to do" (I don't know what to do). However, it is soon revealed that she has completely fallen for them, "You know you've completely stolen my heart." The lyrics continue with the singer expressing how often this person is on her mind, "Morning, noon and night-time too, toujours wondering what to do." She has had these feelings right from the start of their relationship.
The chorus of the song is where the singer is able to express her love in a more direct way, "Darling, je vous aime beaucoup" (Darling, I love you a lot). She wishes she could express her love more fully in French, but her language skills are not good enough. Despite this, she hopes that this special someone understands just how much they mean to her, "But I hope that you compree all the things you mean to me." The song ends with a repeat of the chorus, emphasizing the love that the singer has for this person.
Overall, the song is a beautiful declaration of love that captures the excitement and uncertainty that often comes with falling in love. It showcases the power of language to communicate intimate feelings, and how even with language barriers, love can still shine through.
Line by Line Meaning
Darling, je vous aime beaucoup
My dear, I love you very much
Je ne sais pas what to do
I do not know what to do
You know you've completely
You know you have completely
Stolen my heart
Stolen my heart
Morning, noon and night-time too
Day and night, always
Toujours, wondering what to do
Always wondering what to do
That's the way I've felt
That is how I have felt
Right from the start
From the very beginning
Ah, Cherie!
Ah, my dear!
My love for you is tr?s, tr?s fort
My love for you is very, very strong
Wish my French were good enough
I wish I knew French well enough
I'd tell you so much more
I would tell you so much more
But I hope that you compree
But I hope that you understand
All the things you mean to me
All the things you mean to me
Darling, je vous aime beaucoup
My dear, I love you very much
I love you, yes I do
I love you, yes I do
Wish my French were good enough
I wish I knew French well enough
I'd tell you so much more
I would tell you so much more
But I hope that you compree
But I hope that you understand
All the things you mean to me
All the things you mean to me
Darling, je vous aime beaucoup
My dear, I love you very much
I love you, yes I do
I love you, yes I do
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Sentric Music
Written by: Anna Sosenko
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind