Happy Valentine’s Day.
Popular rock and roll session man Leon Russell wrote a classic in 1970, “A Song For You.”
Russell told filmmaker Danny Tedesco he wrote the song “during a period in my life when I was trying to write standards…trying to write a blues song that Ray Charles and Frank Sinatra could sing. A limousine driver told me that one time in New York, Aretha Franklin was a passenger. When they arrived at their destination, ‘A Song For You’ came on. She made him sit there and play it 20 times in a row.”
Ted Gioia is the author of the 2015 book Love Songs: The Hidden History. Gioia claims “Greensleeves” apparently originated as a song about prostitution.
“’Greensleeves’ gained popularity as a melody used to solicit clients,” Gioia states, adding, “and the title possibly alludes to the grass stains on the attire of women who had sex with customers outdoors.”
