Classical Music | Soprano

Donald Swann

A Word on My Ear Play Play

Simone Osborne	Soprano
Adam Nielsen	Piano

Recorded on 03/13/2014, uploaded on 03/13/2014

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

A Word on My Ear was written by Michael Flanders (1922 – 1975), lyrics and Donald Swann (1923 – 1994), music

A prisoner to rapture, By arduous duty pressed,
A slave to a longing, That lingers in my breast!
Farewell, my friends, adieu,
I can not stay with you -
Farewell, farewell, farewell!

Before I deliver my Seventh Encore
There's one thing I'd like to make clear -
They say I've brought pleasure to millions or more;
They say that my singing half won the last war
When I sang to the troops in the rear.
I'm a Dame with a name
At the peak of my fame,
I'm known as the Empress of Song.
The critics 'bravo' -
And the critics should know -
But I can not help feeling they're wrong.
I'm lauded, applauded, recorded - but hist'!
I've a musical flaw that they seemed to have missed . . .

I'm tone deaf;
Music means nothing to me.
It's only the way
My accompanists play
That makes it appear I'm in key.
Stone, tone deaf;
Can't tell a key from a clef.
I stand by the pianist watching his face,
For he's told me to start when it gets to the place
When he'll give me a whacking great fff in the bass,
Because I'm tone deaf . . .

I'm tone deaf -
Never could understand pitch!
Some people you know
Can sing 'soh-la-tee-do'
And claim they can tell which is which!
Stone, tone deaf!
Can't tell a B from an F.
James Conlon once said "now I don't want to carp,
But if that's a B natural played on the harp
Then you're either B flat, dear, or very B sharp!"
But then I'm tone deaf!

My technique is perfect,
And likewise my larynx!
Paolozzi once sculpted
A bust of my pharynx!
While lovers of music all praise with conviction
My phrasing, my timbre, perfection of diction;
My trilling made swoon . . .
But I just can't remember the tune . . .

I'm tone deaf.
But in most modern works for the voice
The note that I hit doesn't matter a bit,
So it's purely a personal choice.
Stone, tone deaf!
Musically D-E-A-F.
Perhaps Covent Garden can do without me,
And while I command an exorbitant fee,
I'll always get work from the dear COT . . .
Well I'm tone deaf!
Yes, I'm tone deaf!