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.
Frenesí
Natalie Cole Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Bésame igual que mi boca te besó
Dame el frenesí que mi locura te dio
Quién si no fui yo
Pudo enseñarte el camino del amor?
Muerta mi altivez cuando mi orgullo rodó, a tus pies
Y que tú vayas por donde yo voy
Para que mi alma sea no más de ti
Bésame con frenesí
Dame la luz que tiene tu mirar
Y la ansiedad que entre tus labios vi
Esa locura de vivir y amar
Es más que amor, frenesí
Hay! en el beso que te di
Alma, piedad, corazón
Dime que sabes tu sentir, lo mismo que siento yo
Quiero que vivas solo para mí
Y que tú vayas por donde yo voy
Para que mi alma sea no más de ti
Bésame con frenesí
Hay! en el beso que te di
Alma, piedad y corazón
Dime que sabes tu sentir, lo mismo que siento yo
Quiero que tú vivas solo para mí
Y que tú vayas por donde yo voy
Para que mi alma sea no más de ti
Solo de ti, pero tú
Bésame con frenesí, bésame con frenesí
Bésame con frenesí
The lyrics to Natalie Cole's song Frenesi are all about the intense desire and passion that the singer feels for her lover. She implores her lover to kiss her with the same intensity that she has kissed him, and to give her the same frenzy that she herself has given him. Through her words, she expresses the depth of her love and the overwhelming emotions that are involved, as well as the willingness to surrender to this love with abandon.
The lyrics are also about the power dynamics between the singer and her lover. She mentions that only she could have shown him the way to love, and that her pride and arrogance fell at his feet. This suggests that the singer is dominating the relationship, and is the one who is in control of their shared emotions. She pleads with her lover to live only for her, and to follow where she goes, so that she can be wholly consumed by him.
Overall, the lyrics to Frenesi are a deeply romantic expression of desire, love, and passion. Through her words, the singer reveals her vulnerability and willingness to give herself wholly to her lover, while also asserting her power and control over the relationship.
Line by Line Meaning
Bésame tú a mí
Kiss me, show me your love.
Bésame igual que mi boca te besó
Kiss me the same way I kissed you.
Dame el frenesí que mi locura te dio
Give me the passion and excitement that I gave you.
Quién si no fui yo
Who but me?
Pudo enseñarte el camino del amor?
Could have taught you the way to love?
Muerta mi altivez cuando mi orgullo rodó, a tus pies
My pride fell at your feet and my arrogance died.
Quiero que vivas solo para mí
I want you to live only for me.
Y que tú vayas por donde yo voy
And that you follow wherever I go.
Para que mi alma sea no más de ti
So that my soul belongs only to you.
Bésame con frenesí
Kiss me with passion.
Dame la luz que tiene tu mirar
Give me the light that shines in your eyes.
Y la ansiedad que entre tus labios vi
And the excitement that I saw between your lips.
Esa locura de vivir y amar
That madness to live and love.
Es más que amor, frenesí
It's more than love, it's passion.
Hay! en el beso que te di
Oh! In the kiss I gave you.
Alma, piedad, corazón
Soul, mercy, heart.
Dime que sabes tu sentir, lo mismo que siento yo
Tell me you feel the same way I do.
Solo de ti, pero tú
Only for you, but you.
Bésame con frenesí, bésame con frenesí
Kiss me with passion, kiss me with passion.
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Peermusic Publishing
Written by: Alberto Borras Dominguez, Leonard Whitcup
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind