Lush Life

Sometimes when you feel like crap, it helps to listen to happy songs. And sometimes you have to listen to something that makes you feel sad. This is one of the classics of jazz, and one of the saddest songs I know. Sung by Johnny Hartman, sax by John Coltrane, and composed, of course, by Billy Strayhorn (I got mine from this page). Heartbreaking, sad, somehow hopeless but pretty anyway, like cut roses dying in normal air. (And by the way, the “gay” mentioned in the song is early enough to be understood as “happy” though this could easily be …

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