My Favorite Things (song)

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My Favorite Things is a song from the 1959 musical The Sound of Music and the film of the same name . The song, a fast waltz, was composed by Richard Rodgers , the lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II . It was sung by Mary Martin in the original Broadway production and by Julie Andrews in the film version .

Theme and structure of the song

The piece is composed in comparatively monotonous quarter notes that fit the litany of the (previously completed) lyrics, in which only favorite things are listed: from raindrops on roses and beige ponies to crispy apple strudel and the bells of the sleigh to girls in white clothes. All of these things could cheer you up to think about them while you are feeling sick. Alec Wilder found the melody “strangely pondered”.

Impact history

Due to its popularity in the English-speaking world, the piece served several established artists, including John Coltrane and Dave Brubeck , as a template for their own versions that led to modal jazz . Coltrane (with McCoy Tyner , bassist Steve Davis and drummer Elvin Jones ) used - initially in 1960 for the album My Favorite Things - his heavily modified version, in which the beginning ("Raindrops on roses [...]") is constantly repeated, interrupted by solo vamps ; In the next few years he played the piece at almost every live performance, so that it became his signature tune. Coltrane's popularization of the title led to jazz singers such as Sarah Vaughan (1961), Mark Murphy (1961), Betty Carter (1964) or Al Jarreau (1969 and then again in 1994 in a duet with Kathleen Battle ) interpreting the song. An instrumental interpretation took place, for example, in 1963 by jazz pianist Bill Evans . Maria João (in a duet with Aki Takase , 1987) or David Moss (as a solo piece, 1990) experimented later .

In the pilot episode from the TV series Friends , Phoebe actress Lisa Kudrow sings the song partially. Cover versions have also been produced by modern day bands like OutKast (a remix of Coltrane's version) and Me First and the Gimme Gimmes . At the Academy Awards in 2004, comedian Billy Crystal described the award-winning film The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King with a modified version of My Favorite Things . In the film Dancer in the Dark by Lars von Trier sings Björk an a cappella version of the song. On his 2008 album Guitars , McCoy Tyner (himself a long-time pianist with John Coltrane) presents another cover version of the piece with Béla Fleck on the banjo. In the episode Noretta (S7E07) from the TV series How I met your Mother , the actresses Frances Conroy (Barney's mother Loretta Stinson) and Nazanin Boniadi (his girlfriend Nora) sing a version based on the original version.

In Austria , where the story told in Sound of Music takes place, both the song and the film are largely unknown; however, especially in the USA and Great Britain , Austria is inextricably linked with the film and the songs that go with it.

In 2018, the following 11 artists reworked the melody for ARTE Studio within the ARTE Studio Sessions : My Favorite Things: Rosemary Standley, Jeanne Added , Hugh Coltman, Fred Poulet and Mami Chan, Gie Dre, Nicolas Jules, Brad Scott, Élise Caron , Louis Sclavis , Melissa Laveaux

In 2019, Ariana Grande used a sample of the song for her title 7 Rings .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cit. n. Schaal, Jazzstandards , p. 333
  2. ↑ ARTE Studio Sessions: My Favorite Things
  3. ↑ Billboard: Ariana Grandes' '7 Rings' Samples' My Favorite Things' and Twitter Can't Handle It