"For All We Know"... there are 2 songs with this title.

The 1934 song:



And the 1970 song:



I'm listening to both this morning after getting way too involved in the use of the word "for" as a conjunction as opposed to a preposition — after a doctor had said "for my wife and I," which is grammatically wrong if "for" is a preposition there. In the song title — in 1934 or 1970 — "for" is a conjunction... or, no... it's a preposition... right??

The Carpenters' song was in the 1970 film "Lovers and Other Strangers," which I've never seen. It won the best song Oscar that year. The older song is something I've heard many times, by so many different singers. It's much more familiar to me. It seems like the better song: "For all we know/We may never meet again/Before you go/Make this moment sweet again." The kindliest love-'em-and-leave-'em song. It's about living in the present. "So love me, love me tonight/Tomorrow was made for some/Tomorrow may never come/For all we know."

The phrase "for all we know" is an acknowledgment of the unknowability of the future. The older song tells us to be here now, because there may be no future at all. The newer song — I'm calling it newer though it's much older than the 1934 song was in 1970 — imagines a very long future and stresses the love that goes on an on forever: "Let's take a lifetime to say/I knew you well/For only time will tell us so/And love may grow/For all we know." Or does that final "for all we know" reveal the singer's doubt?

ADDED: "Lovers and Other Strangers" was the occasion for the first film appearance of Diane Keaton:

"Nat King Cole would have turned 100 years old today."

John blogs today (when it's his birthday too). Lots of beautiful singing (and piano playing) in videos embedded at the link.

"With a gun against my belly, I always smile."

Linked by Meade in the comments to "An affected or simpering smile; a silly, conceited, smiling look," which is a post about the criticism of the smile — the "smirk" — on the face of the Covington Catholic schoolboy Nick Sandmann.

Sandmann is smiling, but it's not a natural, happy smile, because — as he wrote in his statement — he was anxious and trying to express that he "was not going to become angry, intimidated or be provoked into a larger confrontation." So that's just about exactly the the position of Gary Cooper's interlocutor. Cooper ("The Virginian") says, "If you want to call me that, smile." And Walter Huston ("Trampas") smiles non-naturally and anxiously, as he says, "With a gun against my belly, I always smile."

When I think of a person who is smiling when he is not in a condition of relaxed happiness, I think of the beautiful Charlie Chaplin song "Smile" — sung with unearthly warmth by Nat King Cole:

Smile, though your heart is aching
Smile, even though it's breaking
When there are clouds in the sky
You'll get by...

ADDED: I think Bob Dylan was influenced by "The Virginian" when he wrote "The Ballad Of Frankie Lee And Judas Priest":

“Eternity?” said Frankie Lee
With a voice as cold as ice
“That’s right,” said Judas Priest, “Eternity
Though you might call it ‘Paradise’”
“I don’t call it anything”
Said Frankie Lee with a smile
“All right,” said Judas Priest
“I’ll see you after a while”

"The first signs of modern 'proto-hippies' emerged in fin de siècle Europe. Between 1896 and 1908, a German youth movement arose..."

"... as a countercultural reaction to the organized social and cultural clubs that centered around German folk music. Known as Der Wandervogel ('wandering bird'), [these proto-hippies] opposed the formality of traditional German clubs, instead emphasizing amateur music and singing, creative dress, and communal outings involving hiking and camping. Inspired by the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Goethe, Hermann Hesse, and Eduard Baltzer, Wandervogel attracted thousands of young Germans who rejected the rapid trend toward urbanization and yearned for the pagan, back-to-nature spiritual life of their ancestors. During the first several decades of the 20th century, Germans settled around the United States, bringing the values of the Wandervogel with them. Some opened the first health food stores, and many moved to southern California where they could practice an alternative lifestyle in a warm climate. Over time, young Americans adopted the beliefs and practices of the new immigrants. One group, called the 'Nature Boys', took to the California desert and raised organic food, espousing a back-to-nature lifestyle like the Wandervogel. Songwriter eden ahbez wrote a hit song called Nature Boy* inspired by Robert Bootzin (Gypsy Boots**), who helped popularize health-consciousness, yoga, and organic food in the United States."

I'm reading the Wikipedia article "Hippie," where I ended up after reading a BBC article, "Did the Hippies have nothing to say?/The 1960s counterculture fuelled an artistic explosion in the US – but were the flower children merely privileged?" Excerpt from the BBC article:

It’s important to consider the context of the hippies, a majority white, middle-class group of young people with the undeniable luxury of being able to ‘drop out’. Even considering their participation in the civil rights and anti-war movements, the fact is that hippies had less at stake than those fighting for civil rights so that they could fully participate in society, not drop out. The hippies romanticised indigenous and eastern cultures (without considering the suffering of poverty) for their lack of modernity, experimenting with communal living and imaginary bohemia, creating an artificial marginality, which they saw as ethically righteous. Not to mention their unapologetic cultural appropriation.

_________________________

* "Ahbez composed the song 'Nature Boy'... Living a bucolic life from at least the 1940s, he travelled in sandals and wore shoulder-length hair and beard, and white robes. He camped out below the first L in the Hollywood Sign above Los Angeles and studied Oriental mysticism. He slept outdoors with his family and ate vegetables, fruits, and nuts. He claimed to live on three dollars per week." Wikipedia. Here's the hit version of the song by Nat King Cole:



** "[Bootzin] dropped out of high school and left home to wander California with a group of self-styled vagabonds. In the 1940s, Bootzin, along with 10-15 other 'tribesmen', lived off the land in Tahquitz Canyon near Palm Springs, slept in caves and trees, and bathed in waterfalls. Decades ahead of the Hippie movement, Bootzin and his companions had long hair and beards, lived a carefree existence and were seasonal fruit pickers. The group became known as 'Nature Boys.' A combination of the philosophy of the Nature Boys and growing counterculture of the 1950s and 1960s in California may have been responsible for the emergence of California spirituality in the 1960s...." Wikipedia. And here's "Gypsy Boots" on "You Bet Your Life" with Groucho Marx in 1955:

Bill Flanagan interviews Bob Dylan. Read the whole thing — it's nice and long...

... here. Bob is pushing his new album, "Triplicate," which is 3 discs of him singing standards like "That Old Feeling" (my favorite song when I was about 4 and had no old feelings) and "Sentimental Journey" (the song my parents considered their song for reasons I only came to understand, suddenly, 4 years ago).

Bob gives an explanation for why he put the 30 songs on 3 CDs when they would have fit on 2 CDs:  

Is there something about the 10 song, 32 minute length that appeals to you?

Sure, it’s the number of completion. It’s a lucky number, and it’s symbolic of light. As far as the 32 minutes, that’s about the limit to the number of minutes on a long playing record where the sound is most powerful, 15 minutes to a side. My records were always overloaded on both sides. Too many minutes to be recorded or mastered properly. My songs were too long and didn’t fit the audio format of an LP. The sound was thin and you would have to turn your record player up to nine or ten to hear it well. So these CDs to me represent the LPs that I should have been making.

That's either mystical, metaphorical, or bullshit.

Are you concerned about what Bob Dylan fans think about these standards?

These songs are meant for the man on the street, the common man, the everyday person. Maybe that is a Bob Dylan fan, maybe not, I don’t know....

Jay Z, performing at a concert for Hillary, said the words that everyone knows are in his songs.

Business Insider writes it out enough so you can see what people heard and what Hillary had to know would be heard:

The rapper repeatedly used the n-word and dropped the f-bomb as he performed “F—WithMeYouKnowIGotIt” and his hit “Dirt off Your Shoulder” song at a Cleveland rally.

"You're tuned into the motherf----- greatest," a voice said as Jay Z appeared onstage.

“If you feelin’ like a pimp n----, go and brush your shoulders off,” Jay Z rapped. “Ladies is pimps too, go and brush your shoulders off. N----- is crazy baby, don’t forget that boy told you. Get that dirt off your shoulders."

Jay Z also performed the song "Jigga My N----," in which he boasted that he was "Jay-Z, motherf-------!"

I'd say this is why artists should maintain their separation from politics, but Jay Z chooses to be involved and Hillary's campaign chooses to use him as a tool to access a segment of the population that seems to be hard for her to reach.

At the link, there's video of Jay Z's performance, with the words uncensored. I'd like to see that video spliced into this much-played Hillary Clinton ad:



Use the same children, the same innocent, sweet faces, watching Jay Z and ending with Hillary's solemn intonation: "Our children and grandchildren will look back at this time -- at the choices we are about to make, the goals we will strive for, the principles we will live by -- and we need to make sure that they can be proud of us."

IN THE COMMENTS: AReasonableMan said "Artists get a lot of leeway in how they express themselves that is not open to most other professions." And I say:

Yes, but the criticism is of Clinton. Should she be attaching these words to herself? I think an edgy artist ought to stay separate, but I don't know that Jay Z cares about being a rebellious social critic. The words he uses have been the norm in his genre for decades, so his using them says nothing. I'd have to read more about him to know if he's talking about anything that I'd have to disapprove of.

So that made me go over to Rap Genius and read the lyrics to "Dirt off Your Shoulder." An annotator explains: "Brushing dirt off your shoulder is just a 'pimp' gesture, it shows that yeah, you got knocked down, but you don’t care." So, I get it. It's the same message as the corny old song "Pick Yourself Up" — "Nothing's impossible, I have found/For when my chin is on the ground/I pick myself up/Dust myself off/And start all over again." Same idea. Here, listen to Nat King Cole. You want to say, no, it's not the same as "Pick Yourself Up" because Jay Z is talking about being a drug dealer? Well, then check this out:



UPDATE: Trump talked about it today:

"[Jay-Z] used every word in the book last night... He used language last night that was so bad and then Hillary said, 'I did not like Donald Trump's lewd language.' My lewd language. I tell you what, I've never said what he said in my life. But that shows you the phoniness of politics and the phoniness of the whole system."

Poor Obama!

This is so mean:



There's that brilliant smile America fell in love with. The man is photogenic. Is that so wrong?! Maybe the beams of joy will go out to Foley's parents... and to ISIS... and to the people of Ferguson...

***

Smile though your heart is aching/Smile even though it's breaking./When there are clouds in the sky/you'll get by.... Light up your face with gladness/Hide every trace of sadness/Although a tear may be ever so near....