I’ve talked about Audrey Hepburn briefly before, but today she gets the center stage, as I talk about a few songs on the theme of the most beautiful woman in recorded history.
We’ll start by noting that not only was she an extremely talented actress and beautiful beyond words, the woman could also sing.
Moon River – Audrey Hepburn
I talked about this song almost a year ago. My comments from back then: “Breakfast at Tiffany’s is a great film on its own merits, but I would happily watch the whole thing even if it was terrible, just to get the two minutes of her strumming the guitar, singing “Moon River.” She’s so beautiful and sad and distant and fragile. Henri Mancini won an Academy Award for the song, and rightly so, but it’s her delivery that turns it from a great song into a magical one.”
Audrey Hepburn – ist (website)
One of the crazy things about love is the way it changes everything we see. This is a love song for a woman that he thinks is “Audrey Hepburn come back from the dead,” which reminds us that the one you love is always the most beautiful in the world regardless of what anyone else might think.
But it’s also a cautionary tale, as the love fails to clarify the rest of a complicated life. And the distortions are not limited to seeing beauty through rose-colored glasses – it leads us to make bad decisions, fall into ruin in pursuit of that perfect ideal.
There is no easy answer, except to embrace the complications and hope you come out alright on the other side. And to remember that as much as Audrey Hepburn (or whoever) becomes the standard or the ideal, that’s only an image, a projection. Real life is never so perfect, and we wouldn’t really want it to be.
I Have No Sister – Oh No! Oh My! (website)
If you read any other blogs, you’ve probably already run into this one, so I won’t talk about it much, except to say that this is one of the best of the recent batch of bedroom pop songs, partly because the reference to Audrey (“you look like Audrey Hepburn when you get all dressed up / I have seen all your movies ’cause Audrey’s a stone fox “) gives it the perfect dose of post-teenage angst.
Finally, did you know that most of the songs on My Fair Lady actually do not have Audrey singing? The producers decided that her voice wasn’t strong enough so they had a professional “singing double” Marni Nixon overdub her voice. Which is ridiculous because Audrey’s voice is wonderful, in part because it’s not perfect in a technical sense. After all, Eliza isn’t supposed to sing each note precisely – it’s supposed to sound real, which Audrey definitely does. Fortunately, the original versions of most of the songs are floating around on the internets. Check out my favorite song from the film:
Final question: what’s everyone’s favorite Audrey Hepburn movie? Mine is the relatively little-known Love in the Afternoon, with My Fair Lady a close second. And Breakfast at Tiffany’s…and Roman Holiday…and Charade…and all of them.