Almost Touching

Chet Baker was not an especially nice thing to look at, nor a particularly skilled musician in terms of how fine those qualities can be. But must we always be pretty and talented to be beautiful? (I know, I know, how could someone as pretty and talented as I say such a thing, debase myself among the deformed and dumb? The answer is that I am pure and good on the inside.)

Ol’ Chet was this tremendously controlled singer, with hardly any range. The first time I heard him, I thought he was a woman, but a sort of terrified one. His trumpet isn’t anything ornate or hectic. It’s just beautiful, and it feels good. When I lived alone, I would play his records, pour some rose’, and embrace my own cliche, teetering around the house a little drunk and wearing lingerie, holding the cat to my busom against her will. Yes, it’s true. I am Miss Havisham.

Anyway, there is this song on Imperial Bedroom, one of the best albums of all time, that Elvis claims he wrote with Chetto in mind. It’s probably the saddest song he’s ever written, and if you an obsessive about his catalog like I am, then you will know that this is a profoundly heartbreaking song you are about to hear. It’s most painful in its simplicity and plainness; Elvis is a bastard, vicious, a misogynist, angry, loathsomely clever, jealous, seething, but limp? Listless? Oh god, you think, is it that bad? The piano alone sounds like a body collapsing.

Yes. Unfortch, Chet was on his last legs by the time he ever got to record his own version of it, and many of them sorta suck. I’ve been on the hunt for this Live in Tokyo record he did for so long, because it was rumored to be by far the best show he did in the twilight of his life, as they say. It’s a rare album, but I finally found it. I offer to you this version, the best version recorded by Chet, as well as the original.