The wonderful thing about obsessively investigating music, old and new, even when you’ve been doing it for far longer than is sensible, is that you can still dig up gems from people you’ve never heard of… case in point: Dory Previn.
I featured a song by Dory in a recent edition of Snapshots and part of the clue referred to another famous Previn – Eric Morecambe’s favourite composer, Andre. Even while I was writing that clue, I hadn’t realised that Dory was married to Mr. Preview throughout the 60s, during which time they co-wrote a shed-load of songs for the likes of Doris Day, Matt Monro, Rosemary Clooney and Dionne Warwick.
It's important, however, that we don’t remember Dory as “Mrs. Previn” since her best songwriting was done in the 70s following her split from the conductor, who left her for the much younger Mia Farrow.
Beware of young girls who come to the door
Wistful and pale, of twenty and four
Delivering daisies with delicate hands
Beware of young girls, too often they crave
To cry at a wedding, and dance on a grave
Dory Previn – Beware Of Young Girls
Intensely autobiographical, full of honesty and raw emotion, but also wit and warmth, the songs I’ve heard so far from Dory during this period are really quite wonderful.
Those lemon haired ladies, why must you seem them?
All that I want, in your eyes, is to be them
Time is on their side, that's all I lack
Oh, I wish you would just go away
No, come back
Come back. Go away
Come back. Go away
Dory Previn – Lemon-Haired Ladies
This one’s my current favourite, the female version of Baby, It’s Cold Outside, full of aching vulnerability. I love the way she voices her desperation, then shrugs it off with a joke, so as not to appear desperate at all.
