Black was born as Solomon Schwartz on 14 June 1913 in Whitechapel, England. His parents were Polish and Romanian Jews. He began piano lessons at the age of seven. He was aged only 12 when his first composition was broadcast on BBC Radio and continued his early success by winning a Melody Maker arranging competition aged 15.
In the early 1930s he was employed as a jazz player and composer and had worked with Howard Jacobs, Joe Orlando, Lew Stone, Maurice Winnick and Teddy Joyce by the time he joined Harry Roy in 1936. He had also broadcast and recorded with several American musicians, including jazz saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, who had first heard Black on late night radio shows with Lew Stone's band. When the two eventually met in London, the reviewer Edgar Jackson suggested they record together, and a notable collaboration is a duet version of Honeysuckle Rose.
During World War II, Black joined the Royal Air Force, and became involved in managing the entertainment of servicemen based at Wolverhampton. In 1944 he was appointed conductor of the BBC Dance Orchestra, and remained in the job for almost nine years, broadcasting as many as six nights a week.
By this time he had also begun recording under his own name for Decca. Now well involved with the film industry, he went on to compose, arrange and direct music for about 200 more films, notably after being appointed music director at Elstree Studios in 1958. He was also principal conductor of the Associated British Picture Corporation Orchestra and musical director composer of that organisation from 1958-1963.
Stanley Black's radio work kept him in contact with a large listening audience through his incidental music for shows such as Much Binding in the Marsh and the first two series of The Goon Show. He later presented his own programmes on radio and television, including Black Magic and The Marvellous World of Stanley Black.
In the early 1950s he regularly topped the Melody Maker lists of the most-heard musicians on radio. He was chosen to be included on Decca's first release of long-playing records in the UK in June 1950. This enabled him to continue his conducting, arranging and performing and resulted in a large number of albums. He was particularly popular in United States, as evidenced by his inclusion in the Billboard best-sellers lists.
During his life, he conducted many of Britain's major orchestras, and until the 1990s he was still directing regular broadcast sessions at the BBC studios, despite the onset of deafness in later life.
Stanley Black is remembered for writing numerous scores for radio, television and cinema, including the theme-tune for The Goon Show.
Other films he composed scores for include Laughter in Paradise (1951), The Naked Truth (1957), Blood of the Vampire (1958), Too Many Crooks (1958), The Long and the Short and the Tall (1961), West 11 (1963), The System (1964), Crossplot (1969), and the Cliff Richard musicals The Young Ones (1961) and his orchestral backing for Richard's follow up, Summer Holiday (1962), which won him an Ivor Novello Award. His work also became familiar to millions of cinema audiences as a consequence of his theme tune and music library for Pathé News, written in 1960.
He also recorded many classical works, including collections of Tchaikovsky and George Gershwin. In 1965 he won a Gramophone Award for his version of Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio Espagnol. In addition, he arranged and conducted many commercially successful albums on LP and later CD like Tropical Moonlight, Cuban Moonlight, Black Magic, and series of Film Spectacular and Broadway Spectacular for Decca Records.
Mona Lisa
Stanley Black Lyrics
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You're so like the lady with the mystic smile
Is it only cause you're lonely they have blamed you
For that Mona Lisa strangeness in your smile
Do you smile to tempt a lover Mona Lisa?
Or is this your way to hide a broken heart?
Many dreams have been brought to your doorstep
They just lie there, and they die there
Or just a cold and lonely, lovely work of art.
Do you smile to tempt a lover Mona Lisa?
Or is this your way to hide a broken heart?
Many dreams have been brought to your doorstep
They just lie there, and they die there
Are you warm, are you real Mona Lisa?
Or just a cold and lonely, lovely work of art.
Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa.
The song "Mona Lisa," written by Ray Evans and Jay Livingston, is an emotional ballad that lyrically focuses on the famous Leonardo da Vinci painting of the same name. The song speaks to the enigmatic smile of the Mona Lisa, wondering whether it is intended to tempt a lover or simply to hide a broken heart. The lyrics suggest that the painting holds a sense of strangeness in its smile, and that the unnamed men who have given it its name have blamed the painting's enigmatic quality on the loneliness of its subject. The song questions whether the painting is a "lovely work of art" or something more complex, perhaps even signaling deep emotional pain and isolation.
The lyrics of "Mona Lisa" are straightforward, but they tackle some complex themes. At the heart of the song is the concept of loneliness, and the question of whether it is possible for a work of art to capture and express the depths of human emotion. The song also explores the idea of perception, both in terms of how the Mona Lisa's smile is perceived by different people and how people perceive the artwork as a whole. Ultimately, though, the song seems to suggest that the Mona Lisa is more than just a simple painting - rather, it is a symbol of human experience, a representation of the joys and sorrows that make up our lives.
Line by Line Meaning
Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa men have named you
The people have given you the title Mona Lisa.
You're so like the lady with the mystic smile
Your undeniable beauty and enigmatic expression reminds me of the mysterious lady.
Is it only cause you're lonely they have blamed you
The world blames your strangeness on your loneliness.
For that Mona Lisa strangeness in your smile
Your peculiar smile is the source of your mysterious reputation.
Do you smile to tempt a lover Mona Lisa?
Are you smiling to seduce a lover or someone else?
Or is this your way to hide a broken heart?
Is your smile just a facade to mask a broken heart?
Many dreams have been brought to your doorstep
People have come to you with many aspirations.
They just lie there, and they die there
Unfortunately, their dreams remained unfulfilled and wasted.
Are you warm, are you real Mona Lisa?
Are you a genuine and approachable person, Mona Lisa?
Or just a cold and lonely, lovely work of art.
Or are you just a beautiful statue, isolated and impassive?
Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa.
Mona Lisa, the woman with secrets hidden behind her immortalized image.
Lyrics © DistroKid, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: Ray Evans, Jay Livingston
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind