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.
Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye
Natalie Cole Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Everytime we say goodbye, I wonder why a little,
Why the Gods above me, who must be in the know.
Think so little of me, they allow you to go.
When you're near, there's such an air of spring about it,
I can hear a lark somewhere, begin to sing about it,
There's no love song finer, but how strange the change from major to
minor,
When you're near, there's such an air of spring about it,
I can hear a lark somewhere, begin to sing about it,
There's no love song finer, but how strange the change from major to
minor,
Everytime we say goodbye.
In Natalie Cole's song "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye," the lyrics suggest the heartbreak and devastation of saying goodbye repeatedly to someone who brings joy and beauty to our lives. With each goodbye, the singer feels a little bit of themselves dying and questions why the world would allow such pain. The use of the metaphor of Gods above the singer who allow their love to leave adds an air of helplessness and tragedy to the song.
When the person is near, there is a sense of lightness and joy, symbolized by the "air of spring" and the singing lark. The love between the two is unparalleled, as evidenced by the line "There's no love song finer." However, the sadness of having to say goodbye is heightened by the shift from major to minor in the song's melody. This change in key reflects the shift from happiness to sadness that the singer experiences every time they have to part ways.
Overall, the lyrics of "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye" are a poignant and emotional portrayal of the pain of saying goodbye to someone you love. The use of metaphor and symbolism adds depth to the song's meaning, while the melody echoes the emotional journey of the lyrics.
Line by Line Meaning
Everytime we say goodbye, I die a little,
Each time we part ways, I feel a little bit of myself slipping away and it hurts me deeply.
Everytime we say goodbye, I wonder why a little,
Every time we say our farewells, I can't help but question why we have to be apart and why it has to be so difficult.
Why the Gods above me, who must be in the know.
I can't help but wonder about the greater power above me that must have a reason for this separation.
Think so little of me, they allow you to go.
It feels as if the higher powers could care less about me, as they let the person I love go away from me.
When you're near, there's such an air of spring about it,
Being in your presence feels like the beginning of something new and positive, a sense of renewed life and energy.
I can hear a lark somewhere, begin to sing about it,
I am filled with joy and hopefulness at the sound of a bird singing, it feels as if nature is cheering us on.
There's no love song finer, but how strange the change from major to minor,
Our love is beautiful and perfect, but the sudden shift from a happy major key to a sad minor key when we say goodbye is a difficult and jarring experience.
Everytime we say goodbye.
Each and every time we part ways, it feels like a little piece of my heart is breaking off and it's becoming harder and harder to handle.
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Royalty Network, Sentric Music, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: Cole Porter
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Eduardo Guerra
Toda vez que nós nos despedimos
Eu morro um pouco
Toda vez que nós nos despedimos
Eu me pergunto “por quê?” um pouco
Por que os deuses lá em cima, que sabem todas as coisas, pensam tão pouco em mim?
Eles permitem que você se vá…
Quando você está perto
Há um ar primaveril em tudo
Eu consigo ouvir uma cotovia
Cantando em algum lugar
Não há canção de amor melhor
Mas estranho a mudança de tom
De maior para menor
Toda vez que nos despedimos…
George Gourlie
This is the most beautiful piece of music. What a fabulous rendition by Natalie also.
Catharine Roberts
Such a beautiful song some 50 years after Mr. Porter wrote it. This IS music. Nothing we hear of today's music will last this long. Natalie does a great job with the song. Many thanks for the upload!
robert davis
50 years? written in 1944
Steven Torrey
A beautiful rendition. It is easy to forget what an excellent balladeer Cole Porter was.
Rich Pulin
NO.......NOT EASY!
Catherine
Steven Torrey He was a musical genius
Dennis Hartnett
Singing this, Natalie shows her wonderful jazz roots - growing up around her Dad, Ella, - et al - just marvelous here. This is my favorite Cole Porter song, without fail.
Reverend Monique-Marie Bray
Dennis, it is mine too.
lillithdv8
When my mother passed i played this at her funeral. I miss you Mama
Joseph Dunlap
Sorry for your loss 🙏🙏🙏