A secret message, of course

Elaine and I chose a film out of the blue last night, Terence Davies’s Of Time and the City (2008), a meditation (for lack of a better word) on the Liverpool of the director’s early life, made of archival footage with commentary. In 2016 we watched and loved Davies’s The Long Day Closes (1992). Of Time and the City is the only other movie of his available from the Criterion Channel, and it vanishes on August 31. So — we watched.

How strange, late in the film, to hear Peggy Lee’s 1957 recording of Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern’s “The Folks Who Live on the Hill.” That was one of my dad’s favorite songs, and we played Mel Tormé’s 1956 recording five years ago at his memorial. My dad died five years ago yesterday.

I couldn’t place Peggy Lee’s voice last night, even though I have the recording (on one of my dad’s CDs). I thought I was hearing Lee Wiley. As Elaine pointed out, I got it half right.

[Joking aside, Lee Wiley was indeed a major influence on Peggy Lee.]