Music Invasion - Retro Double Take: Petula Clark's "This Is My Song" & The Carpenters' "The End of The World"

We have a special edition today. Yes, I'm afraid your blogger host here has gone retro and pulled out these two nostalgic numbers.

Well actually, I think Petula Clark's This Is My Song popped up the other day on my iPod and stayed in my head a little bit. In my little wikipedia research, I found out that this song is actually written by the great Charlie Chaplin in 1966 who was then a next door neighbor of Petula Clark. I got the song from the soundtrack of Billy's Hollywood Screenkiss, I have to say I love that movie because it introduced me to some great music, including Nina Simone which I so love. If it wasn't for that movie, I would have been completely ignorant.

The song is quite melodramatic and there is a certain naivete to the subject of love. I'm so in love with you that the whole world seems to look better with you around. It reminds me when I first fall in love with someone, everything does sem a lot brighter and nicer. The movie version is here, done in a mock-hollywood way, it's worth seeing it just distract you from the music but feel free to compare.



This Is My Song

Why is my heart so light?
Why are the stars so bright?
Why is the sky so blue
Since the hour I met you?

Flowers are smiling bright,
Smiling for our delight,
Smiling so tenderly
For all the world, you and me

I know why the world is smiling,
Smiling so tenderly
It hears the same old story
Through all eternity

Love, this is my song
Here is a song, a serenade to you
The world cannot be wrong
If in this world, there is you

I care not what the world may say
Without your love, there is no day
So, love, this is my song
Here is a song, a serenade to you

I care not what the world may say
Without your love, there is no day
So, love, this is my song
Here is a song, a serenade to you

---

The reason why I put a second retro song in this post is because they kinda complete each other. I think they use the same method to deliver the exact opposite messages. My heart is broken but how come the world is still turning? It's still melodramatic if not more so and you can still feel the naivete. This song is originally done by Skeeter Davis 5 years before the above song in 1962. I wonder if this song has inspired the other one or not. It's a great break up song, don't blame the guy, blame the whole world. I chose the Carpenter version of this song because it is the one that I'm most familiar with.

I guess at the end when you compare the two, you get a sense that the world doesn't care, things move on the same way no matter how you're feeling. I can't understand, no, I can't understand, how life goes on the way it does?



The End Of The World

Why does the sun go on shining?
Why does the sea rush to shore?
Don't they know it's the end of the world
'Cause you don't love me anymore?

Why do the birds go on singing?
Why do the stars glow above?
Don't they know it's the end of the world
It ended when I lost your love

I wake up in the morning and I wonder
Why ev'rything is the same as it was
I can't understand, no, I can't understand
How life goes on the way it does!

Why does my heart go on beating?
Why do these eyes of mine cry?
Don't they know it's the end of the world?
It ended when you said goodbye

Don't they know It's the end of the world?
It ended when you said goodbye