LOUIS ARMSTRONG – "What A Wonderful World"

Sorry Pete, my ambiguity: of course the elderly can be sentimental. I meant that there’s a fruitful (if a bit obvious) part-contradiction between ‘having all the time in the world’ and ‘sounding as old as the hills’.

Pete – using this song ironically was also done in “Good Morning Vietnam”. This is one of those Number 1s it’s interesting to consider in the context of the time – it reached the top three weeks after the assassination of Martin Luther King, and with the other goings-on in the spring of 1968 it was probably reassuring to reach for a bit of unironic sentiment. Beautiful piece of music too.

Chris – yes, he’s the oldest living artist to reach number 1 at 66 (a little older than Hilda Woodward of Lieutenant Pigeon), but everyhit.com gives an honourable mention to Kenneth Wolstenholme, who was just short of 70 when his “they think it’s all over – it is now” World Cup Final commentary was used in “World in Motion”!

I wouldn’t have much to say about this song had I not seen a mini-biography on TV last week.

Considering Armstrong’s life and all he had to put with , it’s quite remarkable that he retained any sort of hope or love left.

Interesting tid-bit was that he placed in an orphanage at a very young age for allegedly shooting a gun into the air at a New Orleans party. In the orphange he made to join the marching band as form of discipline and he was given a trumpet/coronet to play. And went on , depending on who you believe , to ” invent ” jazz.

The voice reflects the hardship and through the lyric re-affirms a faith that really has no right to be there.

Brian in Canada

I agree completely with Tom, especially regarding the cloyingness of this song.

It is sad, I think, if this recording is ALL that some nowadays know of Armstrong’s huge recorded output. I say “nowadays” because this song has never gone away. It’s one of those that follow you around via muzak and other public media. Ah, well–sentimentality sells.

As to age records, I read something a couple of years ago about Yoko Ono having her first (and only) number one at 70 on one of the US Billboard charts (dance music, I think).

btw any chance ‘tell it like it is’ or ‘gris-gris gumbo ya ya’ topped the britcharts in 68? wondering how many new orleans connex might pop up yet (‘what a wonderful world’ > ‘lady madonna’ ie. 6 > 5).

Specialist charts don’t count. And neither do re-issues (if they did, Elvis would be the winner, because he topped the charts 70 years after he was born).
I have to admit I hadn’t thought of Ken Wolstenholme, although he’s sort of on the borderline between being a member of a chart act (which I would count) and just being somebody who appears on a record (which I wouldn’t); it’s sort of ambiguous because of the one-off nature of Englandneworder.

Brian’s comment up there reminds me that I heard James Morrison (he’s a bit like James Blunt, but not as bad) explain that his song of the same title was distantly inspired by this, but that he was trying to show the downside of life too. He appeared to think that Louis Armstrong was unaware of suffering, and that he was thus improving upon the original.

More than most songs the mark for this one was reliant on my mood on the day I did the write up – I was in a bad one so a 4 it is. Without Armstrong’s sincerity (and the intriguing strangeness of his voice) it wd have been 2 or 1!

I like sincerity, but I like cynicism too – both can make for great or bad pop. It’s no coincidence surely that this track was covered by the Flaming Lips, who have spent a career using sincerity as an annoying bludgeon.

As a child of the 1980s I think sincerity allied to ‘pretension’ is my favourite thing of all.

As a child of the 60s reborn in the 80s–it’s a long story that needn’t be told–I, too, am quite fond cynicism and pretention.

Ergo, I have no problem accepting Yoko Ono’s #1 as a REAL #1.

I’d rather listen to a cynical and pretentious old woman (who can really do the mock sincerity thing while she’s at it) than a sentimental old codger any day.

I’d go raving mad if I had to listen “Wonderful World’ repeatedly, but just keep on dancing to “Thin Ice.”

I wasn’t attempting a critique of ‘Walking On Thin Ice’ (I can’t really remember what it sounds like) but I take it straight out of contention as a Number One because it was only Number One on the dance chart, and in America anyway. On the basis we’re looking at here, it was a Number 35 (both times, in fact).

ure songs are beast put some on a web site ……mmm please put what a wonderful world on if you make a site because its my favourite song you are elish and singing xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“I never tried to prove nothing, just wanted to give a good show. My life has always been my music, it’s always come first, but the music ain’t worth nothing if you can’t lay it on the public. The main thing is to live for that audience, ’cause what you’re there for is to please the people.”

— Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong

Has there ever been a song that’s turned around so much in ‘critical’ appraisal? Back then, it was all about Louis selling out, now it’s a reflection on his life and optimism for the future.

So, who was right? Who knows…

Sentimentality is good, this is good. Mind you, I can’t extricate it in my mind from montages of war, torture, pollution and violence, or a half-remembered Spitting Image filk of it where the lyrics had become “and I think to myself, we’ve ruined the world”.

The “wide-eyed sincerity overload” of this is exactly what makes it work: in a world that is constantly finding new ways of going to sh**, the sheer guilelessness of this is eternally heartbreaking. And the fact that it hails from 1968’s summer of optimism, from an age that couldn’t possibly have imagined how bad things might still be able to get, is the cherry on the cake.

The connection may only be tenuously genre-specific, but here’s as good a place as any to say RIP Joe Morello. My Dad’s favourite drummer.

Another “missing” double A side. Brian Matthew just played Cabaret, which was a soft’n’cosy trad version of title song from the 1967 musical. Quite pleasant, but hard to imagine it reaching no.1 on its own strengths.

Or maybe not: http://musicsoundsbetterwithtwo.blogspot.com/2011/12/caught-between-two-worlds-small-faces.html Thanks for reading, everyone!

Four?! Well, everyone’s entitled to their own opinion. For me this is a true classic. Strangely, it missed the Hot 100 entirely back in 1968 because some clueless record company executive declined to promote it. Too bad as while sentimental it is, Armstrong’s heartfelt delivery and optimism makes it work for me 46 years later and counting. It’s worth noting that Armstrong had proven he could have US hit singles as his version of “Hello Dolly” had ended the first wave of US Beatlemania four years prior. WAWW would become a belated US Top 40 record in 1988 when Armstrong would’ve been 86 or 87 (depending on who you ask)…possibly a chart record of some sort. I was half-expecting it to be released yet again as a charity record in the wake of Katrina, although perhaps the world wasn’t feeling too wonderful at the time.

Not quite a 10 for me, but definitely a high 9.

at the time my friends and I would get great pleasure from trying to emulate the raspy growl of this song. We’d previously done the same with ‘Wandering Star’. This is pleasant enough but without Louis singing the song veers into greeting cards territory

We’ll discuss the song again once we get to virtual 2007. Until then, this original gets a fair 6 from me.