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1 Solomon and Sinatra: The Song of Songs and Romance in the Church Robert Case A Sunday School Class Faith Presbyterian Church Tacoma, Washington 2016 Part 5 “The Good Life” The American Songbook has many songs dealing with singleness and the joys of marriage. A Tin Pan Alley favorite, "The Good Life" was written by Sacha Distel and Jack Reardon in 1962 and made popular in 1963 by the great Tony Bennett. He gained a #18 hit on the U.S. pop chart with it. "The Good Life" has become one of Mr. Bennett's staple songs, and was featured on four of his top-selling albums. He even named his 1998 autobiography, “The Good Life,” and that was after Bennett had taken the cure for his booze and cocaine addiction. The ironic lyrics speak of the so-called “good life” of singleness and freedom, when in fact, the singer tells us the “good life” is really being united with someone who loves you. A “good life” is life with a “good wife,” and you’d be wise to “kiss-off” singleness, Mr. Bennett tells us at the end of the song: “It's the good life, full of fun, seems to be the ideal. Yes, the good life, lets you hide all the sadness you feel. You won't really fall in love for you can't take the chance. So be honest with yourself, don't try to fake romance. Yes, the good life to be free and explore the unknown, like the heartaches, when you learn you must face them alone. Please remember I still want you, and in case you wonder why. Well, just wake up, kiss that good life goodbye.” (“The Good Life” performed by Tony Bennett)(2:15) https://www.amazon.com/The-Good- Life/dp/B00F878SMM/ref=sr_1_2?s=dmusic&ie=UTF8&qid=1470433425&sr=1- 2&keywords=The+Good+Life+Tony+Bennett The German poet and writer Johann Goethe (1749-1832) wrote concerning the Song of Songs: “It is the most tender and inimitable expression of graceful yet passionate love that has come down to us” (West-Eastern Divan, 1819). The Song of Songs gives us the romantic valentine tone of the entire Biblical Songbook in its very first song (SS 1:2-4), where we read the passionate exclamation of a young single woman for union with her young man: (Her) “Let him kiss me with the kisses (nasaq)(smother me with kisses) of his mouth for your love (your love-making, caresses) (dadayim) is better than wine. How wonderful is the scent of your oils; your name is poured out oil. Therefore, the young women love (ahab) you. Draw me after you, let’s run! The king has brought me into his bedroom.” 2 Some translations have “smother me with kisses” which Lloyd Carr thinks better expresses the intensive Hebrew construction here (Song of Solomon, 1984). “Your love” can also be translated “your breasts” (dadayim) since the word for “love” and “breast” comes from the same root (dodim). So the context of our verse warrants the inference of “love” to be “love-making” or “caresses” with physically erotic connotations rather than “love” in the abstract or spiritualized or disembodied sense (cf, SS 4:10; 5:1 and 7:12). God has given us one entire book of the Bible, the Song of Songs to illustrate proper romance and love. There is nothing like it in the Scriptures. “I’ll Take Romance” “I’ll take Romance” is a film waltz tune written by Ben Oakland and Oscar Hammerstein for the 1937 movie I’ll Take Romance starring Melvyn Douglas. The song is a gentle, yearning ballad for love while one is young enough to give one’s heart away. Frequently performed by the top popular singers in numerous movies this is a romantic favorite and it helps set the tone for our look at the Song of Songs. Here is Peter Palmer, Li’l Abner on stage and screen to sing for us. Palmer, a Christian man, played tackle on the University of Illinois champion football team in the early 50s, and for all the home games in l953, as a voice major, he sang the National Anthem in his football uniform before each home game. “I'll take romance while my heart is young and eager to fly I'll give my heart a try, I'll take romance. I'll take romance while my arms are strong and eager for you I'll give my arms their cue, I'll take romance. So my lover when you want me, call me in the hush of the evening. And when you call me in the hush of the evening I'll rush to our first real romance. While our hearts are young, eager and gay I'll give my heart away and I'll take romance.” (“I’ll Take Romance” performed by Peter Palmer)(2:47) https://www.amazon.com/Ill-Take- Romance/dp/B0049YHMIQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=dmusic&ie=UTF8&qid=1470433925&sr=1- 1&keywords=I%27ll+Take+Romance+peter+palmer “Blue Room” "Blue Room" is a show tune from the 1926 Rodgers and Hart musical The Girl Friend. It was featured in the 1948 film Words and Music, where it was sung by Perry Como, who recorded the song later that year. The song has also been recorded by Bing Crosby, Tommy Dorsey, Eddie Duchin, and Benny Goodman. Mr. Como’s version reached #18 on the pop charts. The song was featured in the 1946 movie, The Big Sleep, starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. “We'll have a blue room, a new room for two room where every day's a holiday because you're married to me. Not like a ballroom, a small room, a hall room where I can smoke my pipe away with your wee head upon my knee. We will thrive on, keep alive on, just nothing but kisses with mister and missus on little blue chairs. You sew your trousseau and Robinson Crusoe is not so far from worldly cares as our blue room far away upstairs.” 3 (“Blue Room” performed by Perry Como)(3:31) https://www.amazon.com/Blue- Room/dp/B004JFWMVC/ref=sr_1_1?s=dmusic&ie=UTF8&qid=1470434395&sr=1- 1&keywords=Blue+Room+Perry+Como The Song of Songs is either a single, long poem or a collection of ancient Hebrew love songs or ballads sung by a woman and a man to each other arranged in a thematic way. This view of the structure of the Song is analogous to the musical Cat’s which is based on T.S. Elliot’s 1939 book, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats which is a collection of charming verses on the common theme of different names of cats, but still all felines, not a dog in the bunch. “The Naming of the Cats” "The Naming of Cats" is the second song of the Andrew Lloyd Webber 1981 musical, Cats. The song is a slow, eerie song which uniquely acknowledges the audience and explains to them how cats are given their names in rhythmic dialogue from the full company. “They are proud, however, and they explain to their human visitors who they are and reveal that cats have three different names: the one the family uses daily, the more dignified name and a secret name. It is the cat's contemplation of the latter that keeps felines in deep thought. The naming of cats is a difficult matter It isn't just one of your holiday games You may think at first I'm mad as a hatter When I tell you a cat must have three different names. First of all, there's the name that the family use daily Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey All of them are sensible, everyday names. There are fancier names, if you think they sound sweeter Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter But all of them sensible, everyday names. But I tell you a cat needs a name that's particular A name that's peculiar and more dignified Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular? Or spread out his whiskers or cherish his pride? Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo or Coricopat Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum Names that never belong to more than one cat. But above and beyond there's still one name left over And that is the name that you never will guess The name that no human research can discover But the cat himself knows and will never confess. When you notice a cat in profound meditation The reason, I tell you, is always the same His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name. His ineffable, effable, effanineffable Deep and inscrutable singular name Name, name, name, name, name, name.” (“The Naming of the Cats”) https://www.amazon.com/The-Naming-Of- Cats/dp/B000VH17G8/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?s=dmusic&ie=UTF8&qid=1470434664&sr=1-1- fkmr0&keywords=The+Naming+of+the+Cats+Andrew+Lloyd+Webber An interesting possibility about the Song is that its very title “Song of Songs” implies that there were other Hebrew love ballads, and that this particular ballad that we have was just the best one. This is a possible interpretation because in the Hebrew using the same noun in the singular and plural is a way of expressing the superlative.

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