What a Wonderful World?

I was just listening to the radio and they were playing Rod Stewart’s version of Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World”. Then an appliance store advertisement was played with part of the original version. Listening to both so close together you realized the words and the tone of the music and voice of the original.

This song that is now so well-loved by generations of listeners because to most people it sounds so optimistic to them in their cultural perspective has long been misunderstood. Rod Stewart can recognize the music as being blues-based, but his version is sentimentally laced, nostalgic with superficial attention to the words. The superficial attention to the words give this song a supposed upbeat message of cheer and this is the danger of hearing something from one culture in a different cultural perspective.

Louis Armstrong on the other hand was singing a bluesy song with longing for what he is singing about. Here was a world famous musician who in his own country most of his lifetime had to enter where he was performing through kitchens or back entrances. Performing to multi-cultural audiences he was up in front of the affluent who could afford the admission price and a night out on the town. He himself, came from poverty and never completed school as he started working as a shoeshine boy and then became a horn player in a band.

He learned to play the trumpet exceptionally and piano good enough to write songs, so he put together several bands before becoming popular enough for a recording contract. “What a Wonderful Life” was written towards the end of a great career and even more specifically after the Civil Rights Act of 1965. People hear the words about the sky being so blue, the birds singing and people saying, “How do you do?” meaning, “I love you” and assume it is an optimistic song. All of those things sound great that they hear, no one can deny that.

Why would anyone be blue if they were making these observations? Isn’t he saying, “What a wonderful world”? One’s cultural perspective can change where that question mark goes. Listen to the words completely. He is singing that “I see …” or “I hear…”. His observations are of things that should make a wonderful world but he is asking, “What a wonderful world?” because white America was not asking him, “How do you do?” because they did not love the color of his skin. He didn’t get much time to experience the sky so blue or the birds singing because his life had been too busy. By the time he wrote this song he was depressed and addicted to heroin even though he was “a success.”

The majority of listeners worldwide took this song to be an optimistic song from America. Rod Stewart was still a resident of Great Britain when it originally came out. Later the movie “Good Morning Vietnam” used the song in its true ironic meaning when the words are juxtaposed with that conflict but that movie backfired bringing the song back as nostalgic. Now the sky is blocked by city buildings or filled with pollution and the birds are drowned out by automobiles and jet airplanes. Oh and in our age of fear of strangers how many people ask you, “How do you do?”