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The Platters
Album
: The Platters
Music by Georges
Boulanger
Lyrics by Carlos Gomez Barrera
and Jimmy Kennedy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DE0UMnrQBD0ThePlatters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmRZcQTmqmsThePlattersDeniseS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnFXi01gdZ4ThePlattersDanzMusicStudio
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDlcqhlzDqQThePlatterscatman916
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fb3H4_kITLkThePlattersIQQIQQI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1Q6zDzk_i0karaokeLetsSing
lyrics
[Intro]
When the twilight is gone
And no songbirds are singing
When the twilight is gone
You come into my heart
And here in my heart you will stay
While I pray
[Verse 1]
My prayer
Is to linger with you
At the end of the day
In a dream that's divine
[Verse 2]
My prayer
Is a rapture in blue
With the world far away
And your lips close to mine
[Bridge]
Tonight
While our hearts are aglow
Oh tell me the words
That I'm longing to know
When the twilight is gone
And no songbirds are singing
When the twilight is gone
You come into my heart
And here in my heart you will stay
While I pray
[Verse 1]
My prayer
Is to linger with you
At the end of the day
In a dream that's divine
[Verse 2]
My prayer
Is a rapture in blue
With the world far away
And your lips close to mine
[Bridge]
Tonight
While our hearts are aglow
Oh tell me the words
That I'm longing to know
[Verse 3]
My prayer
And the answer you give
May they still be the same
For as long as we live
That you'll always be there
At the end of my prayer
.
.
And the answer you give
May they still be the same
For as long as we live
That you'll always be there
At the end of my prayer
.
.
"My Prayer" is a 1939 popular song with music by salon
violinist Georges Boulanger and lyrics by Carlos Gomez Barreraand Jimmy Kennedy.
It was originally written by Boulanger with the title "Avant de
Mourir" in 1926. The lyrics for this version were added by
Kennedy in 1939.
Glenn Miller recorded
the song that year for a number two hit and The Ink Spots'
version featuring Bill Kenny reached number three, as well,
that year. It
has been recorded many times since, but the biggest hit version was a doo-wop rendition
in 1956 by The Platters, whose single release
reached number one on the Billboard Top 100 in
the summer, and ranked four for the year.
The
Platters recording features in the 2008 film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,
in the 1985 film Mischief, in the 1999 film October Sky,
and in two episodes of the 2017 series of Twin Peaks. The Ink Spots'
version of the song was featured in the 1992 movie, Malcolm X. Vera Lynn sang
the song in the British film One Exciting Night in 1944.
The
song also became a tango in the Italian version by Norma Bruni and Cinico
Angelini's orchestra (1940), "Sì, voglio vivere ancor!".
From Wikipedia, the
free encyclopedia
Jimmy
Kennedy wrote or co-wrote more than 2,000 songs. He was a workhorse, producing
novelties such as “Teddy Bears’ Picnic” and hits for big-band leaders
throughout the 1930s. Based in Northern Ireland, he often took foreign and
forgotten melodies and presented them with new lyrics to British publishing
houses. Kennedy was a musical grandfather to the hip-hop producer sampling from
a vault of obscure vinyl.
One song was a unique challenge. Kennedy thought he could create
a popular song from “Avant
de Mourir”, written and recorded in 1926 by Romanian-born
violinist Georges Boulanger. Translated as “Before I Die”, it was a maudlin
instrumental piece for piano and violin, spanning two octaves and with a minor
chord sequence. The song was designed for the small, attentive “salon” audiences
of high society.
“I am not a trained musician and could not do the necessary
major surgery to turn the music into something that would be commercial,”
Kennedy later said. He enlisted instrumentalists at the Peter Maurice Music
Company. They “cut the 12-bar main theme to eight with more understandable
chords” and added a new middle and stronger finale.
Kennedy came up with the opening words, “When the twilight is
gone and no songbirds are singing.” From there, he was stumped until his wife
suggested the title “My Prayer” to match the music’s solemn depth. It became a
lover’s lament: “My prayer is to linger with you at the end of the day, in a
dream that's divine.”
In 1939, the song was rushed to American big-band leader Glenn Miller.
His recording, done in a breezy foxtrot style, reached number two on the
Billboard chart. That same year, vocal group The
Ink Spotsrecorded a sparser version. High tenor Bill Kenny
began the song and Hoppy Jones interceded with his trademark “talking bass” to
deliver its plea, “My prayer is to linger with you…” In an improvement on
Miller’s version, the Ink Spots had found the song’s humility. It reached
number three.
Kennedy began service in the second world war and the song all
but disappeared. In the 1950s, he moved to the US to continue his career as a
songwriter and found a way to revive “My Prayer”, bigger and bolder.
Kennedy had a chance encounter with Buck Ram, manager of the
doo-wop group The Platters, who had just produced two smash hits for Mercury in
1955, “Only You (And You Alone)” and “The Great Pretender”. Kennedy convinced
Ram that their next single should be “My Prayer”.
Led by mighty tenor Tony Williams, The Platters’sound
was more mournful than most fodder for 1950s radio, but their version of “My
Prayer” was something else. Forgoing the instrumental intros of past versions,
Williams dives into the first line and delivers it with the force of a
Shakespeare soliloquy. The backing harmonies sound like downcast moans. When
Williams floats into the lines about prayer, they seem like an actual appeal to
the divine against a backdrop of despair. There is none of the romantic whimsy
of the Glenn Miller or Ink Spots versions. The Platters had dug up the
forlornness of “Avant de Mourir”.
There weren't many records in the charts that had the intensity
of "My Prayer". Mercury did not want to release it, but executives
learned that another group, The Four Aces, were recording the song, so it was
released. The Platters’ version rose to number one on Billboard in August 1956,
briefly interrupting Elvis Presley’s reign at the top.
No version has matched The Platters’ power or success, though
many have recorded “My Prayer”. Its melodramatic flair made it an obvious
choice for Roy Orbison.
His take concludes his 1963 album In Dreams. Director David Lynch
used The Platters’ version in two key moments in the 2017 revival of the TV
series Twin Peaks. In the first, a flashback to 1956, a radio DJ
plays “My Prayer” as his town is invaded by soot-faced ghouls. “When the
twilight is gone” becomes a prelude to horror. The second is an uncomfortable
sex scene between FBI agent Dale Cooper (Kyle McLachlan) and his secretary
Diane (Laura Dern). Both have been through multiple dimensions and states of
consciousness throughout the series. The ground is about to shift beneath them
again, separating Cooper and Diane into different realms of the show’s
mysterious cosmology. And his prayer was to linger with her at the end of the
day, in a dream that’s divine.
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