My Favorite Things

The song "I Loves You Porgy" :
I first discovered the song a year ago. I was listening to Diana Ross' Blue album, which is a jazz album covering songs popularly and previously recorded by Billie Holiday and was produced as a follow up to the Lady Sings The Blues soundtrack album, but was not released until 2006. Anyway, I kept repeating that one track over and over, because of the orchestration and the vocal delivery and the interesting lyrics. I just loved it. Well I recently got a Billie Holiday cd and a Nina Simone cd, and both have versions of "I Loves You Porgy". Well, they have a very different feel than Miss Ross'. Not better, just different and I feel truer sentimentality to what the song is about and what is going on in the plot of the American folkloric opera "Porgy and Bess" from which the song is derived. Diana's rendition is done with a big band sound and the tempo swings and is thus more ebullient, whereas Holiday's and Simone's versions are much simpler, yet still complex; they have more longing and passion and is tres distingue' .

ANYWAY, I started listening to Billie's version last week, and have played it at least once (usually more times) a day, everyday since. Its just such an evocative song. There are few songs, by few artists that move me the way this one does. I could listen to it forever.
I couldn't find Diana's version online for comparison, but here is Billie's and Nina's versions.
Enjoy!