A Short Reflection on Life, Death and Bobby Darin

      As a child growing up in the 50s and 60s, I heard plenty of Bobby Darin music. Most of it I found schlocky or over the top (just being honest here but stick with me if you happen to be a Darin fan). The man had so many different styles of singing,  from his famous Mack the Knife ,a major hit,  to versions of Neil Diamond songs. He could be excessively showy, even imitating a bad Las Vegas singer. He turned to all sorts of gimmicks and tricks to get his audience to listen and, in my opinion, some of them were more distractions than anything else.

      But hang in here with me.... because there is one song of his that I can't listen to without being mesmerized . A clip of it exists here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ8mVtBnawA

      What do you see when you watch that? Here's what I see .  I see a man who is so ill that he has to ask the bandleader to start over, just so he can catch his breath. Now watch closely, paying special attention to his facial expression. Really drink it in. Listen to the yearning in his voice and watch how he holds back, limits his hand movements, making the song more powerful in contrast.

      Now look closely into his eyes. See the sadness there, the hint that he knows that his days are numbered, fleeting, that he won't have the luxury of living to a ripe old age? If you are being particularly observant, you might note how hard it is for him to keep his eyes open - yet listen to the beauty of his delivery. Amazing, isn't it, that someone in that condition could stil create a song so touching, in spite of his own physical challenges?

     This is one video I can watch again and again. It has such complexity, not because of the song or the lyrics as much as the poignancy of the singer, his life and his struggle to hang in there and give the best performance he can. Often after he left the stage, he had to take oxygen. He had heart disease from an early age, a condition brought on by severe rheumatic fever as a child, and there wasn't a cure for his deteriorating condition.

       He died when he was only 37. Now go back and look at that video again - if you can. Bittersweet and oh, so lovely, isn't it?. Like I said before, I was never much of a Darin fan but that rendition of that song is a seminal one for me.