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Chet Baker’s Dark Take On A Classic

“Someone to Watch Over Me” is a 1926 musical number that’s become a standard covered by everyone from Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald to Willie Nelson and Ray Charles. But with so many distinctive touches being applied to the classic Gershwin composition, which could reasonably be called the “definitive” version?

Many would attribute this honor to Sinatra’s 1946 version which was recorded by Old Blue Eyes for his debut album. This version solidified the tune as a ballad-style torch song as opposed to the jazzy, uptempo arrangement around which the tune was originally conceived, though it was initially recorded in this style by Lee Wiley in 1939.

Other well-known takes include those by names such as Sarah Vaughan, Barbra Streisand, Sting, and Elton John.

This writer has a different take on what constitutes the “definitive” version. Most iterations of the tune fall more in line with a traditional pop number complete with lush strings, including Sinatra’s version.

But another version skews the arrangement ever so slightly, steering the song into darker territory. This version comes from cool jazz singer and trumpeter Chet Baker, for whom the song became somewhat of a signature tune – though not to the extent of the standard with which he remains most closely associated, “My Funny Valentine.”

Baker’s starker version, recorded with pianist Russ Freeman, features more minimalist leanings, with greater emphasis on the diminished chords present throughout the chord sequence. Like Sinatra’s, Baker’s “Someone to Watch Over Me” omits much of the opening lyrical passages of Gershwin’s original, opening on what originally would originally would have been conceived as the song’s chorus.

The ever-so-slight touch of the harmonic darkness adds something to the tune that had not necessarily been explored prior. These elements dilute the schmaltz and thematic elements that tie the song to its compositional origins in the 1920s. This adds a much-needed dimension to the number, allowing it to transcend sheer novelty.

The intimate, somewhat detached vocal delivery for which Baker would become associated has implications of its own in “Someone to Watch Over Me.” It vaguely implies more nefarious forces at play. It’s these implications that assist in the assimilation of passages endowed substantially with the schmaltz of “I’m a little lamb who’s lost in the wood.”

The tune could be described as a longing for companionship and love. Under Baker’s direction, the number is not simply an anticipatory expression of love, but almost as a cry for help. The narrator is decidedly more nuanced than the well-ordered person longing for companionship.

This is an individual who identifies with the anxieties of the “little lamb lost in the wood.” This person, much in the way that Baker would famously become in subsequent years, is borderline hopeless, crumbling, and reaching for a lifeline. This approach compounds the lyrical idea of being watched over, endowing it with a symbolism not just of having a partner to help carry your load, but truly of a person pleading to be pulled from the rushing currents of existence.

Baker’s struggles in the late 1950s and 1960s as he embraced a more destructive lifestyle could be interpreted as a parallel to “Someone to Watch Over Me.” The women in Baker’s company during the height of his success are said to have found themselves in the role of caretaker more so than that of partner.

What drives home the effectiveness of “Someone to Watch Over Me,” however, is its resolution – or lack thereof. While musically, a resolution occurs, thematically, nothing changes for the song’s protagonist.

The exercise as a whole acts more or less as an internal monologue cataloging the gradual and potentially inevitable demise of the narrator.

It’s the assertion of this writer that Chet Baker’s 1954 recording of “Someone to Watch Over Me” stands, if not as the definitive version of the tune, then as the one that boasts the greatest expansiveness of depth and offers the most illuminating insight into the less explored corners of the human condition.

-Cameron Gunnoe

Photo: Chet Baker, 1983 (Michiel Hendryckx via Wikimedia Commons)

1 comment on “Chet Baker’s Dark Take On A Classic

  1. Gordon Hastie

    Baker sings it beautifully. Unlike Willie Nelson, who does an otherwise nice version, he only slightly changes the middle 8’s brilliant lyrics (“man some girls think of as handsome”). Blossom Dearie made a lovely version complete with the introduction.

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