Welcome back to our song-by-song commentary on Get Happy, written by band leader and tallest Pink Martini member, Thomas M. Lauderdale. This week Thomas opens up about his personal connection to “She was too good to me” and our mash-up version of “Üsküdar’a gider iken”. Enjoy!

Track 9: “She was too good to me”

My ex-boyfriend Philip introduced me to the song “She was too good to me.” There’s a really beautiful recording of Chet Baker singing it. It was written by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart in 1930.

“She was too good to me, how can I get along now? So close she stood to me, everything seems so wrong now. She would have brought me the sun, making me smile, that was her fun. When I was mean to her, she would never say go away now, I was a king to her, who’s gonna make me gay now? It’s only natural, I’m so blue. She was too good to be true.”

Robert Taylor, our trombonist, who sounds very much like Chet Baker and sang “Veronique” on the second album Hang On Little Tomato, recorded the vocals on this song. Read More...

Welcome back to our song-by-song commentary on Get Happy, penned by our always prolific band leader, Thomas M. Lauderdale. This week Thomas discusses the long history behind “Je ne t’aime plus” and explains “Oooooowh…BIG ONE!” Enjoy!

Track 6: “Je ne t’aime plus”

In 1996, my college friend Alex Marashian, who was editor-in-chief of Colors magazine and who produced our fourth album Splendor in the Grass with me, introduced me to the French songwriting genius Philippe Katerine. We flew Katerine and his band to Portland from France for a couple performances, one at the Crystal Ballroom in Portland and one in San Francisco. We hadn’t even released Sympathique, our first album, yet.  During this adventure, he and China started writing a song called “Je ne t’aime plus”, (I don’t love you anymore). I always liked the song. Since then, he’s become huge in France. He’s the most likely heir to the throne of Serge Gainsbourg. Provocative and really funny, he has a bunch of different projects, he has an unmistakable voice and he is wonderful. Earlier this year he and China finally finished writing the song. Read More...

Welcome back to our song-by-song commentary on Get Happy, written by our always punctual band leader, Thomas M. Lauderdale. This week Thomas talks about the difficulty he had decoding “Omide zendegani” and how the dashing Ari Shapiro first got caught up with our motley ensemble. Enjoy!

track 4: “Omide zendegani”

Dinah Shore sang the song “Omide zendegani” in Farsi on NBC in 1965, during her hour-long salute to the Peace Corps with Harry Belafonte. Dinah Shore was the Oprah Winfrey of the 1960s and 1970s. Also, there is an annual golf tournament named after her in Palm Springs that many women seem to like.

One day, randomly, I saw a clip on YouTube of Dinah Shore singing this song in Farsi on NBC in 1965. I was incredulous!  It would never happen these days. Trying to find out more about the song was its own adventure. I took it to my Farsi-speaking friends, sent it to language professors in Tucson; nobody quite knew what it was or where it came from. They thought that maybe it was a song of the legendary Iranian singer Delkash, or maybe Googoosh.  Read More...

Welcome back to our song-by-song commentary on Get Happy, written by our always affable band leader Thomas M. Lauderdale. In this installment, Thomas dives into the history of the well-known “Quizás, quizás, quizás” and the jazzy “I’m waiting for you to come back”. Enjoy!

TRACK 2: “Quizás, quizás, quizás”

Two and a half years ago there was a big crisis in the band. China lost her voice.  She was ordered by her doctors to keep silent and she was told she needed to have surgery on her vocal cords. This was a nightmare because Pink Martini had a full calendar. Without China, we thought we might be finished. I called my friend Storm Large, who I’d known for several years.  Storm is from Massachusetts, spent a decade in San Francisco, was on the reality TV show Rock Star Supernova, moved to Portland, and had a band that was big and brassy and outrageous. I had admired Storm because she is smart, and very political.  We had bonded around politics and become friends through our political work through the years. Read More...

A Song-by-Song Commentary On Get Happy
by Bandleader and Producer
Thomas M. Lauderdale

Get Happy is a very special album for us. I like the concept. I like the idea of getting happy especially in these bleak times because things are pretty bleak all around the world. Things are bleak in America, things are bleak in Greece, things are bleak in Spain, things are bleak in Afghanistan. I thought, the last thing the world needs is a restatement of the obvious. So the idea was to find optimism despite the bleakness. Where is hope? Let’s find hope we can embrace in these dark times. That was the goal.

As it turned out the songs that I gravitated towards were not exactly cheery or exuberant.  I mean they’re uplifting …  but in a devastating sort of way. This past January I totally panicked because the album, which was due to be released in April, just didn’t add up to “Get Happy.”  I thought: I don’t want the whole thing to be ironic. I do want it to be genuinely uplifting, and to provide authentic rays of happiness. Read More...

If you’re a fan of the band you probably know that we work very closely with the Oregon Symphony. That’s where we got our start and we consider them family. The Symphony’s show next weekend is Benjamin Britten’s “War Requiem”, and we couldn’t be more excited. This performance marks the 100th anniversary of Britten’s birth, and under the masterful hand of conductor Carlos Kalmar the piece has taken on a whole new life. And for the next week, Pink Martini fans can experience this piece of musical history for 20% the original ticket price!

Here’s what Carlos has to say about this seminal work:

“In 1941, during the Blitzkrieg of the Nazis against Great Britain, the Cathedral of Coventry was bombed in an air raid. Several hundred people died there, and the Cathedral was left in ruins.

Twenty years later, the ruins were still there (they still are). The new Coventry Cathedral was built next to the old one, so that everybody could still see what tragic events led to the destruction of the old one.

For the 1962 re-opening of the Cathedral, Benjamin Britten was commissioned to write a piece. Read More...