They'll Never Know What We Know.

Tonight I'm talking about a 60 year old jazz song.  Listening to a Katie Melua Pandora station, I came across this slow, sultry song performed with just vocals, an acoustic guitar, and some light drumming.  I've been getting a little more into jazz, but it was the Jordan Officer's guitar that drew me in.  The singer's name is Susie Arioli, and in this recording, she was covering "You Don't Know Me."

It was Eddy Arnold and fellow country singer Cindy Walker who wrote this song about unrequited love.  Both of them would created recordings of the song, Ray Charles also created a well known version (later performing it as a duet with Diana Krall).  They all performed it with such a deep sense of longing mixed nervousness.

"You Don't Know Me" is nice and smooth.  It's about two friends, and hide's their romantic attraction.    When the second person doesn't know about their friend's deeper feelings...  That's the way in which the person's a stranger, and the relationship a little more one-sided.  The singer talks about the tension and anxieties building inside.  How there's such strong attraction, but a lack of sexual inexperience keeps them from being so bold as to profess their love.  In the end, the singer's friend has met another guy.  It's sad and heartbreaking but makes for a beautiful song.  It seems like the premise of a romantic comedy, and in my research, I found out that the Arioli version was part of the soundtrack to Under the Tuscan Sun.

In an interview with the Grammy Foundation, Walker was explaining (moved as she reminisced) how "You Don't Know Me" came into being.  Eddy Arnold was friend of her's, and (knowing her to be a songwriter) ran some ideas by her.  He mentioned the title and the concept of a boy too bashful to make the first move on a girl.  Over time, the lyrics came to her.

All those years later, and interpreted by so many musicians, I do find a great irony in this song's fame.  While in the song, the person never hears this message of love, generations of people have.  Perhaps we, the audience, became the intended audience?  Not necessarily through having a secret admirer, but by being inspired to come out and say how we feel about a person in our lives.