Susannah McCorkle (1 January 1946 – 19 May 2001) was an American jazz singe… Read Full Bio ↴Susannah McCorkle (1 January 1946 – 19 May 2001) was an American jazz singer much admired for her direct, unadorned singing style and quiet intensity.

McCorkle was born in Berkeley, California. She studied modern languages at the University of California, Berkeley. McCorkle began singing professionally after hearing recordings of Billie Holiday in Paris in the late 1960s. She nearly became an interpreter at the European Commission in Brussels, but moved instead to London in 1972 to pursue a career in singing. While in the UK, she made two albums which, although well received, enjoyed only limited circulation.

In the late 1970s, McCorkle returned to the United States and settled in New York City, where a five-month engagement at the Cookery in Greenwich Village brought her to wider public attention and elicited rave reviews from critics.

During the 1980s, McCorkle continued to record; her maturing style and the darkening timbre of her voice greatly enhanced her performances. In the early 1990s, two of the albums McCorkle made for Concord Records, No More Blues and Sábia, were enormously successful and made her name known to the wider world. She was recorded by the Smithsonian Institution which at the time made her the youngest singer ever to have been included in its popular music series. McCorkle played Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher and Alice Tully Halls five times and Carnegie Hall three times, and was featured soloist with Skitch Henderson and the 80-piece New York Pops in a concert of Brazilian music.

Thanks to her linguistic skills, McCorkle translated lyrics of Brazilian, French, and Italian songs, notably those for her Brazilian album Sabia. McCorkle also had several short stories published and, in 1991, began work on her first novel. She published fiction in Mademoiselle, Cosmopolitan Magazine, and non-fiction in the New York Times Magazine and in American Heritage, including lengthy articles on Ethel Waters, Bessie Smith, Irving Berlin and Mae West.

McCorkle suffered for many years from depression and cancer, and took her own life at age 55 by leaping off the balcony of her highrise Manhattan apartment. She was alone in her home at the time. The police immediately entered her home after identifying her body and found no foul play. Suicide was ruled the cause of death.

A Beautiful Friendship
Susannah McCorkle Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

This is the end of a beautiful friendship,
It ended a moment ago.
This is the end of a beautiful friendship,
I know,
'Cause your eyes told me so.

We've always been
Like sister and brother,

Until tonight,
When we looked at each other.

That was the end of a beautiful friendship,
And just the beginning of love.

That was the end of a beautiful friendship,
And just the beginning of love!

Overall Meaning

The lyrics of Susannah McCorkle's A Beautiful Friendship convey the end of a platonic relationship between two people who were like brother and sister for a long time. The opening lines of the song, "This is the end of a beautiful friendship, it ended a moment ago", sets the tone of the song, hinting at the bitter-sweet emotions one goes through while parting with a dear friend. The repetition of the line "This is the end of a beautiful friendship", further emphasizes the impermanence and fragility of human relationships. The concluding lines, "That was the end of a beautiful friendship and just the beginning of love", suggests that despite the end of the platonic friendship, the relationship has just transformed into a romantic one.

The song beautifully portrays the transition of a friendship into love, showing the subtle emotions and gradual shifts that happen between two individuals. The use of words like "looked at each other" conveys that the decision to take their relationship to the next level was mutual and has been building up over time. The lyrics also portray the uncertainty that exists when starting a new romantic relationship, especially when it involves someone who was once a close friend.

Line by Line Meaning

This is the end of a beautiful friendship,
Our friendship is now over.

It ended a moment ago.
Our friendship just ended recently.

This is the end of a beautiful friendship,
Our friendship is coming to an end.

I know,
I am certain of it.

'Cause your eyes told me so.
I can tell from the way you look at me that our friendship is ending.

We've always been
Our friendship has always been

Like sister and brother,
We have been close like family.

Until tonight,
However, tonight was different.

When we looked at each other.
When we made eye contact.

That was the end of a beautiful friendship,
That moment marked the end of our friendship.

And just the beginning of love.
But it was also the start of a new romantic relationship between us.