Bruce Welch composition/ Marlene Dietrich

[Maurice]

The Bruce Welch composition, "Theme for young lovers", in Wonderful Life (1964),

was used by Marlene Dietrich for her song Ich werde dich lieben,

translated, in her catalogue, as "Theme from young lovers".



Can anyone explain the discrepancy. Were the words originally composed in German?

[Jackdaw]

name='Maurice']The Bruce Welch composition, "Theme for young lovers", in Wonderful Life (1964),

was used by Marlene Dietrich for her song Ich werde dich lieben,

translated, in her catalogue, as "Theme from young lovers".



Can anyone explain the discrepancy. Were the words originally composed in German?

I only recall the song as a Shadows instrumental, and as far as I'm aware there are no English lyrics.

I suspect Miss Dietrich merely composed her own lyrics and added them to the tune, though I have no idea when.

[darrenburnfan]

I've just listened to it on YouTube and it ain't half bad. Quite good in fact. A pity the lyrics aren't in English, though, as I can't understand German. Yes, it is the same tune, Theme For Young Lovers, an instrumental hit for The Shadows in early 1964. The link is pasted in below, but you have to listen to a German instrumental version for two and a half minutes before Marlene Dietrich starts singing it.



[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEtjR_msdUU]YouTube - "theme for young lovers/ich werde dich lieben"[/ame]

[will.15]

I will love you

I will love you,

Love you to death

'll Love you

To the ends of the earth

People will love each other,

Forget and love

But I will love you until death



I will love you, I will love you,

'll Love you more than death

People will love each other,

Forget and love

But I will love you until death



My soul flies away to you,

And they fly you in your heart,

And you'll love me,

If you are not faithful,

And you'll love me to death



Believe me, believe me

Believe me, believe me







Lyrics last amended by:

solong1 on Monday 22 Oktober 2007 20:58 Clock

[ShirlGirl]

So it's about love then?

[darrenburnfan]

Hmmm, thanks, will, but somehow, the lyrics when translated into English, don't match the notes in the melody.

[will.15]

Love and death.



Wasn't that a Woody Allen movie?



If Dietrich wrote those lyrics, it's pretty clear why she didn't do that more often.

[Maurice]

The song is included on the CD, THE ESSENTIAL MARLENE DIETRICH:

Ich Werde Dich Lieben (Theme from Young Lovers)

Welch/Dietrich/Arr. Stott (1964)



From the booklet:

"ICH WERDE DICH LIEBEN and AUF DER MUNDHARMONIKA are important because they

reveal one side of Marlene's talent not readily known....that of lyricist."

[JohnB_Toronto]

name='darrenburnfan']Hmmm, thanks, will, but somehow, the lyrics when translated into English, don't match the notes in the melody.

My thoughts exactly. How would you sing these lyrics to this melody? However, the credits are first for Bruce Welch, who wrote the melody for The Shadows, as an instrumental. Marlene Dietrich and (Wally?) Stott must have added their own lyrics after the fact - they're still entitled to a songwriting credit but I doubt very much if Bruce was involved in the collaboration. I've asked someone who's in touch with Bruce if he can add anything to this.



In the meantime, could we be talking about the 1960 Percy Faith tune also called "Theme For Young Lovers"? Seems to be more the kind of thing Marlene would record. That would need an explanation of how it is that Bruce Welch gets a writing credit.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xY2sM40iWA[/ame]



It's a mystery!!

[darrenburnfan]

Not really a mystery, John. The Percy Faith LP, judging by the tracks on it, is a collection of popular hits of the early 1960's entitled Theme For Young Lovers and including such pop hits of the day as Go Away Little Girl; Up On The Roof; All Alone Am I; Can't Get Used To Losing You and The End Of The World. The most recent track is Theme For Young Lovers, so the LP cannot have been released before 1964.



I've never been able to listen to Marlene Dietrich singing Lili Marlene without thinking of Eric Morcambe's send up of it on one of the Morcambe and Wise shows:



"Underneath the lamplight, by the village pub,

I was in the army and she was in the club!"

[JohnB_Toronto]

name='darrenburnfan']Not really a mystery, John. The Percy Faith LP, judging by the tracks on it, is a collection of popular hits of the early 1960's entitled Theme For Young Lovers and including such pop hits of the day as Go Away Little Girl; Up On The Roof; All Alone Am I; Can't Get Used To Losing You and The End Of The World. The most recent track is Theme For Young Lovers, so the LP cannot have been released before 1964.

It isn't the same tune as The Shadows'. Just happens to have the same title.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGJSwYOyl1s"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGJSwYOyl1s[/ame]

[JohnB_Toronto]

Apologies, David. I missed the part about having to wait through the German instrumental to get to Marlene's singing. The same song of course. So she's added her own lyrics. Happens all the time. I wonder what Bruce Welch thought of it? I'm sure he's seen it on his royalty cheques, assuming Marlene sold enough of these for it to count! It's certainly an odd pairing.

[Maurice]

Thanks, darrenburnfan, for resurrecting the thread



Are there many examples of songs originally recorded as instrumentals?

[JohnB_Toronto]

First one that comes to mind is in the film "The Sea Wolves" Matt Monro recorded a vocal version of The Warsaw Concerto titled The Precious Moments.

[darrenburnfan]

Well, off the top of my head, Maurice, someone put lyrics to Theme From A Summer Place in 1960 and a number of people sang it, including Jackie Rea on Fontana. The film itself was no great shakes, but Max Steiner's theme was a massive hit for Percy Faith in 1960.



In 1973, someone wrote lyrics to Eye Level, the Van Der Valk theme and Matt Monro sang it on EMI under the title And You Smiled. Meanwhile, here below is the actual Shadows single, which has the distinction of being the very first record I ever bought...way back in March, 1964, one month before my 17th birthday. To enlarge the image, left click with mouse on white bar over top of image.

[will.15]

The Laura theme from the movie Laura was only an instrumental originally and the lyrics were added after the movie's release. The same with the theme for Picnic, with the lyrics by comedian Steve Allen. Unlike Dietrich, he was a songwriter of some accomplishment, his biggest solo hit was music and lyrics for "This Ought to be the Start of Something Big."

[JohnB_Toronto]

The theme music for "Exodus" was written by Ernest Gold and it wasn't until some time afterwards that Pat Boone wrote the lyrics and recorded it.

[Mr Cosmo]

. Meanwhile, here below is the actual Shadows single, which has the distinction of being the very first record I ever bought...way back in March, 1964, one month before my 17th birthday.

What a great memory jerker this was. I had some extra money that week and set off to buy this Shads single, but instead I decided to go to the Classic where they had revived 'Carry On Nurse' which I had seen when I was about eight. I didn't think it had worn too well, and it was on with James Stewart in 'Mr Hobbs Takes A Vacation' which was terrible. I remember coming out of the cinema and thinking that I should have bought the single which I would at least have had forever. Luckily I got it later in the year on the 'Wonderful Life' soundtrack LP. (We didn't call them albums in the UK at that time - and in fact we didn't call the UK the UK, we called it Britain.)

Sorry for hijacking this most interesting thread slightly.

[darrenburnfan]

A 20th Century-Fox film on the same programme as an Anglo Amalgamated film, Cosmo, that was unusual.



Actually, the way I came to buy my first single was a bit of a fluke, as I didn't even have a record player at the time. In March, 1964, there was a new record I liked very much called The Spartans by Sounds Incorporated. A workmate who had a tape recorder had recorded it on tape for me off the radio, but the DJ’s always seemed to cut off the ending echo-ey note of the record. So I told him that I would buy the record and then he could make a better recording of it for me on his record player – tape recorder set up. So I went down to Bevan’s record shop, which was then in Uttoxeter Road, Longton and ordered it and paid six shillings and eightpence for it in advance.



But when I went to collect it a week later, they told me it was out of stock at the distributors and they were unable to get it, but that perhaps I would like one out of the Top Twenty instead. So the girl handed me the chart and I looked at it and saw another record I liked very much. “Well”, I asked her, “have you got number 14, Theme For Young Lovers by The Shadows?” and she said yes and so I had that one instead. And that’s how I came to buy my very first record. (I would actually come to get The Spartans during April, 1964).



I carried on buying singles that I liked and taking them to my workmate's house to test them on his record player and by August, 1964, I had quite a nice little pile of them and my dad bought me a Fidelity auto-change record player from a local shop, on Hire Purchase (no Credit Cards in those days). It cost him 17 and a half guineas and he paid it off at 10/6d a week until it was mine.