This week, I’ve had Cyrille Aimée’s version of “Young at Heart” #OnRepeat. To be honest, I’ve been revisiting this song frequently over the past three or four months after discovering it on Pandora (a great source for finding new music, by the way), but haven’t been able to get it out of my head for the past week or so.
I’m not too familiar with Cyrille Aimée, but what I have learned so far is that she is a Jazz singer from the city of Samois-Sur-Seine in Fontainebleau, France who is currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Cyrille has won several prominent Jazz competitions over the years, including the Montreux Jazz Festival Competition in 2007 and was a finalist in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition of 2010. Her music blends Jazz, Folk, and French music. Some of her most-well known songs are “It’s A Good Day,” “Smile,” and “Let’s Get Lost.”
“Young at Heart” is a popular standard, lyrics written by Carolyn Leigh and music by Johnny Richards. Frank Sinatra was the first to record and popularize the song in 1953. The song, “Young at Heart,” is one of the few songs whose lyrical themes are timeless and universal–viewing the world with innocence, expecting great things to happen, and having a positive outlook on life can keep you young and happy. The words are simple, yet poignant (if you haven’t already noticed, I dig simplicity and subtlety in music). Cyrille adds her own flare of innocence to the song with her vocal timbre and interpretation of the words. The way she slides up and down in her register between notes and where she chooses to place this in different lyrical phrases adds emphasis to the simplistic nature of the theme and the song itself.
Take a listen below:
Is there any musician or group that you can’t stop listening to? Leave a comment below and let us know!