I was 7 years old when he first sang this and it spoke to me hauntingly because I spent summers up in the northern woods of Wisconsin, just with my parents, and I my mom had always called me "Nature Boy" since I spent so much time alone in the forest. I had never seen him perform it, only heard it on the radio. Thank you for sharing this. I am now 80 years old and still feel connected to this song.
@@lindakelley8961 The first time I heard it was in the car with my parents, driving from south of Chicago up to the north woods of Wisconsin where we had a summer home. I remember it well because it sounded so melancholy and somehow it really affected me. It was 1948 and you and I were just 9 years old. Long, long ago. Thanks for the memory.
@@BruceBoschek And you, as well! I think we were fortunate to be raised in the days of truly gifted singers woh had no angles and weird get-ups to garner attention.
To think moulin Rouge and the resident alien TV show made me look up the lyrics to this and lo and behold defined as example was here with these words that start my search “The greatest thing, you'll ever learn, is just to love and be loved in return."❤
All great artists make it look effortless. Note the impeccable phrasing and articulation, plus the intimate softness of his voice. Cole is simply incomparable.
You're right of course. The other thing which makes a great singer is how unique their voice is. Many popular singers today could be intermixed as their voices are so similar, but someone like Cole you can pick out instantly. The same goes for people like Frank Sinatra, Dionne Warwick, Nina Simone etc.
I'm so glad someone could capture this on film back in that time, so we could all enjoy it forever ! His voice was incredible... but he was a great pianist as well.
Absolutely a phenomenal piano player. His Nat King Cole Trio recordings really show this! And, BTW, the other members are also phenomenal…the guitar playing on this is so perfect and beyond compare…perfectly soulful to match the mood and meaning of the song. This recording is a priceless jewel…
I was mesmerized at age 8 (1948) by this song, and it became the first song I could sing by heart. I have virtually worshiped Nat King Cole all of my life. I attended many of his appearances in the '50's, had all his albums, shook his hand, and was close enough to the stage at one concert (security was lax, largely unnecessary in those days) to feel flecks of saliva on my face from his ample mouth. (That mouth being a major factor in his extraordinary enunciation of lyrics.) I did not wash my face for days afterward, and years later (1965) was utterly grief-stricken at his untimely passing.
Yup, he sure had a King-sized mouth all right. I wonder how much that played into how well he sang? This is a good version of it because he's on the piano, too, and the guitar player sure was skilled. I also recall when he died. It was around Christmas, wasn't it? I remember them playing "Chestnuts Roasting O'er and Open Fire" and then the bad news about his untimely passing. I inherited a several record set of his music and it is so crisp and well recorded, with violins sounding clear piercing and wonderful. I especially liked this one and "That Sunday, That Summer." The musicians and singers of today couldn't touch this guy with a ten-foot pole, that is, unless they are another one of those very talented and hard working people who labor in obscurity, like all the decent and truly worthwhile people who are utterly ignored in these Dark Ages, which has been going on for most of my life. Back then, things were very different indeed.
@@jakemcclintock8696 you mean gloved and hats and MANNERS? Sign me up for that!! My goal for the year 2020: to be BORN in 1920. To be a jazz singer in chicago. And wear * lots of hats* Debra ☮️🎼🎹🎼☯️.... Oh yeah, to get two Cats one dog and back into a place where i can cook. Tired of motels/hotels... ... Hard to cook meals (Real ones*) in a microwave., Esp. With all those gloves and hats on.
I discovered this song in a coffee place, many years ago. I was just arriving to live and study in Montreal. I was very lonely in this situation but this loneliness also had a taste of freedom. Outside, the snow was falling like a curtain. Each time I listen to this song I can remember the feeling of that moment. Each time I find this interpretation magical and mesmerizing.
Perfect and beautifully put--your loneliness with a taste of freedom! A couple of decades ago I was stranded by myself in a hotel in Toronto--in a January snowstorm-- feeling lonely and very sorry for myself. I turned on the radio and whom did I hear but Jo Stafford singing "No Other Love" (based on Chopin!) Also, perfect!
I heard this song on tv when I was a kid, some 65 years ago. Now, after 5 cancers and the various slings and arrows of life, it is the most true thing I know. Incredible song.
Beautiful Angel🙏🏽! This song has a soulish/ spiritual realm to it! The emotions I felt reminded me of Jesus' pilgrimage on this earth for me🌎! John 3:16 & John 13:34-35
It's my understanding that Nat Cole didn't just transcend issues of race, he had to overcome them for his TV show. There were people that didn't want to see a talented, successful black man get the limelight.
@@peterschlosser7605 Much respect Peterschlosser. What I'm saying, I could never say, if, you hadn't said what you said FIRST. Simply This: THERE ARE PEOPLE THAT DON"T WANT (you get the picture) to see a Talented, Successful BLACK MAN get The Limelight. Sir: Tks. much
Eden Ahbez. A songwriter and musician, he lived a nomadic life roaming the Hollywood Hills in the 1940's. Looking like depictions of Jesus he wore robes, long hair, and sandals and was credited as the seed of the hippie movement.
-----------LYRIC-------------- There was a boy A very strange, enchanted boy They say he wandered very far Very far, over land and sea A little shy and sad of eye But very wise was he And then one day, One magic day he passed my way While we spoke of many things Fools and Kings This he said to me: "The greatest thing you'll ever learn Is just to love and be loved in return"
Nat King Cole’s voice is as smooth as silk- just gorgeous! And wow, that guitarist,(Irving Ashby), is superb! This song speaks to my heart. Thank you to Eden Ahbez, the composer .
Agreed. Ashby CRUSHED and never even looked down at the fretboard. While I remain mesmerized by Nat's silky voice, Ashby hit me across the face with a 2X4.
Yes, absolutely. So worthy of praise, admiration and study are the writer, singer and players on this…what a jewel…this guitar playing is one of my favorite all time guitar…I don’t know the word for it…it’s just so…no words….
You'll never hear a voice as smooth as Nat King Cole. You just won't. He was a prodigy. I think about how much he had to go through being a black musician at that time and his suffering when cancer took him. It brings a tear to my eyes.
Nat did indeed have a velvety voice. But I must add there was another singer in that era that also had a smooth as silk voice that man was Tommy Edward's. I am in my seventies and to this day I cannot say for sure who had the better voice.
The strange encounter of Nat King Cole with Eden Ahbez... "In the late 40s, there was a rumor that there was a "hermit," disenchanted and disillusioned with the world, supposedly "out-of-sync" with society, living in California in a cave under one of the L’s in the Hollywood sign. No one really cared about this strange man, until one night in 1947, when someone tried to enter backstage at the Lincoln Theater in Los Angeles. Nat King Cole was playing there, and the man said he had something for Cole. Of course, the employees didn't let the strange man see Cole, so he gave whatever he had to Cole's manager. What he had was a song sheet, which Cole would later take a look at. Cole liked the song and wanted to record it, but he had to find the strange man. When asked, the people who saw the man said he was strange, indeed, with shoulder-length hair and beard, wearing sandals and a white robe. Cole finally tracked him down in New York City. When Cole asked him where he was staying, the strange man declared he was staying at the best hotel in New York - outside, literally, in Central Park. He said his name was eden ahbez (spelled all in lower-case letters). The song he gave Cole was titled, "Nature Boy." It became Cole's first big hit, and was soon covered by other artists through the years, from Frank Sinatra and Sarah Vaughan to Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga, most recently. Of course, the media went crazy about the strange, mysterious man who handed Nat King Cole, one of the biggest hits during that time. Everyone went out to try to find out more about him. What little they found was that he was once an orphan, who never stayed at one place very long, living in various foster homes. He explained he just never fit in and was always searching, for something. ["They say he wandered very far... Very far, over land and sea..." They found out he would hop freight trains and walked across country several times, subsisting solely on raw fruits and vegetables, then one day he completely vanished. ["A little shy and sad of eye... But very wise was he..."] He finally showed up again in the Hollywood hills. When a policeman stopped the strange, long-haired man with beard, sandals, and robe, ahbez simply replied, "I look crazy but I'm not. And the funny thing is that other people don't look crazy but they are." ["And then one day... One magic day he passed my way..."] No one seems to really know why he selected Cole, there were some rumors that he came out of hiding when he began to hear about the racism going on and trouble throughout the world, and he thought "King" was the best person at that time to pass his message along. ["While we spoke of many things... Fools and Kings..."] When he was asked about racism, he replied, "Some white people hate black people, and some white people love black people, some black people hate white people, and some black people love white people. So you see it's not an issue of black and white, it's an issue of Lovers and Haters." It was that theme of love that he continued to talk about, what was missing in the world, and what would be needed in the future if we are to survive. ahbez would eventually get his message out, especially after the counter-culture finally caught up with him and the hippie movement began, when other artists such as Donovan, Grace Slick, and the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson sought him out. He also wrote songs for Eartha Kitt and had another song recorded by Sam Cooke. In 2009, Congressman Bill Aswad recited the last lyrics of the song before the Vermont House of Representatives at the passing of his state's same-sex marriage bill in '09. Author Raymond Knapp described the track as a "mystically charged vagabond song" whose lyrics evoked an intense sense of loss and haplessness, with the final line delivering a universal truth, described by Knapp as "indestructible" and "salvaged somehow from the perilous journey of life." ["This he said to me... The greatest thing you'll ever learn... Is just to love and be loved in return."] ➖➖➖ "George Alexander Aberle (April 15, 1908 - March 4, 1995), known as eden ahbez, was an American songwriter and recording artist of the 1940s to 1960s, whose lifestyle in California was influential in the hippie movement. He was known to friends simply as ahbe. Ahbez composed the song "Nature Boy", which became a No. 1 hit for eight weeks in 1948 for Nat "King" Cole. Living a bucolic life from at least the 1940s, he traveled 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. In the mid 1950s, he wrote songs for Eartha Kitt, Frankie Laine, and others, as well as writing some rock-and-roll novelty songs. In 1957, his song "Lonely Island" was recorded by Sam Cooke, becoming the second and final Ahbez composition to hit the Top 40. In 1959, he began recording instrumental music, which combined his signature somber tones with exotic arrangements and (according to the record sleeve) "primitive rhythms". He often performed bongo, flute, and poetry gigs at beat coffeehouses in the Los Angeles area. In 1960, he recorded his only solo LP, Eden's Island, for Del-Fi Records. This mixed beatnik poetry with exotica arrangements. Ahbez promoted the album through a coast-to-coast walking tour making personal appearances, but it sold poorly. During the 1960s, ahbez released five singles. Grace Slick's band, the Great Society, recorded a version of "Nature Boy" in 1966 and ahbez was photographed in the studio with Brian Wilson during a session for the Smile album in early 1967. Later that year, British singer Donovan sought out ahbez in Palm Springs, and the two wanderers shared a reportedly "near-telepathic" conversation. In the 1970s, Big Star's Alex Chilton recorded a version of "Nature Boy" with the photographer William Eggleston on piano. The song was finally released as a bonus track on the 1992 Rykodisc re-release of the album Third/Sister Lovers. In 1974, ahbez was reported to be living in the Los Angeles suburb of Sunland, and he owned a record label named Sunland Records, for which he was recording under the name "Eden Abba." From the late 1980s until his death, ahbez worked closely with Joe Romersa, an engineer/drummer in Los Angeles. The master tapes, photos, and final works of eden ahbez are in Romersa's possession. Ahbez died on March 4, 1995, of injuries sustained in a car accident, at the age of 86. Another album, Echoes from Nature Boy, was released posthumously."
It was like I fell into a spell when I was 4 years old (my mother confirms this), and I fall right back into it more than 50 years later. Do you know? It was composed by a wandering man, eben abez, who wrote the song and left it at King Cole's club one night in the late 1940s.
My Dad’s favorite, “ Now that’s singin’ son!” Even Sinatra, admitted that, “Nat, was the Greatest!” And he was. Gone too soon, who needs NASA, when you have Nat King Cole to fly you to the moon.
This is so incredible how talented this guys was, no pitch correction, no fancy studio editing. But extremely well prepared and well practice musicians. What beautiful song writing.
@@hjdhbcfjjb Right? I have loved this song since the childhood of my 80 years. Somewhen I heard on the radio that it was written by a New York Street Musician called . Later I learned on the internet that an early versionof The Beatles was Johnny & the Moondogs. I never saw the word "Moondog" elsewhere. This is a clear memory because I heard it as a ten.year.old Nature.Boy of melancholic nature, and the song became a Theme song in my life. I also recall there was some gossip connecting Moondog with the HOLLYWOOD Sig. Please tell it if you know it,
@@Jivanmuktishu the writer was a beautiful nature man who was a hippie before there were hippies. His name was eden ahbez, and he gave all of the royalties away from this song. You can read about him in wikipedia.
Not only a brilliant musician but an amazing human being. I love this man's voice. Fell asleep listening to him from mum's radio downstairs. RIP to all those great men.
Мне 63 г.Живу в России.Услышал cover на эту опесню от прекрасной русской оперной певицы,которая всю жизнь живет в Канаде и в Италии Ekaterina Shelehova.Пришел к вам.Какая красота,какое божественное исполнение.Гитара супер.История написания текста просто фантастическая.Спасибо всем.
This takes me right back to my childhood, when I heard Nat singing "Nature Boy" on the radio, and I was 12 years old. It was the first time I learned the lyrics to a song, and I sang it perpetually. At 12, I was enchanted by the great Nat King Cole.
The song composer was parked under the HOLLYWOOD sign on the hill, and he brought the lyrics to the studio where Nat King Cole worked. Cole wanted to see the lyrics (a lot of famous songwriters and musicians had someone writing songs for them to play) but something about these lyrics really caught Nat King Cole's attention. The rest is history.
I listen to this whenever I’m nervous, scared or sad or just because. Sometimes I just play it Several times. It’s like a balm on my soul. Just to think that until recently I had never heard of this song! ❤️❤️❤️
Yes!! Thank you! I was hoping someone would mention her! I had no idea the song wasn’t hers, it’s got her style of writing written all over it (pun intended?lol)
Gosh, how I love him singing this most haunting song. It was my bother's favorite song ever and also mine. Love - THE GREATEST THING. So sad there is so little of it in today's world. 😥
When I hear this, I picture myself in a dimly lit cantina in the middle of Chicago 1947. I have a glass half full of whiskey and a table all to myself. I'm wearing a grey suit with grey pants, black tie and a neatly folded white pocket square. I sit with my hand on my face and my elbow resting on the table. My other hand hold my glass and a lit cigarette. I stare at the glass, swirling it around while I'm serenaded by King Cole on the stage.
Lemn Sissay Man, Nat King Cole sings and plays for all of us, no matter who we are: I would like to visualize you and that other guy sitting in that same bar, having a good time and you having a drink and all!
this song was used for the introduction of the Netflix Series "The Andy Warhol Diaries" based on the book. It was a perfect way to start it. Hauntingly beautiful song.
I am. I was explaining to the wife how come my mother's cat was called "Nature Boy" after the cat on "The Bickersons". It all stemmed from this Nat Cole tune
This song was No1 the day I was born. Then I saw him up close in Dublin when I was just four, and I still remember the hounds tooth check jacket he was wearing.
Songwriters like me need people like you to help bring the artistry back to American music. Support real musicians and songwriters, because we can make this throw away music culture go away, and usher in a new era of American art! 🐰💙🇺🇸🎸🎶🤝✌️
I was a very little kid when this came out, five or so. It made me emotional to hear it. I thought it was the voice from heaven signing the words of God. I was right to be impressed: It's a masterful performance. The wonderful guitar, not the least reason. And it has a "beat," not static but moving forward. But, of course, his voice is bewitching...
My goodness he was brilliant. And his band too. What voice. What expression. Just read a long story about the man who wrote this song, Eden Ahbez. One of the original, if not the original hippie. A seemingly homeless man who left the song for Nat King Cole who liked it, searched Eden out and recorded it as his first big hit.
Everybody keeps mentioning the guitarist in this beautiful song (and rightly so), but Nat King Cole’s piano playing is just as impressive...🎹 And his vocals: AWESOME ! 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
4 года назад
indeed! I'd like to learn how to play this song on the piano, but all sheets I find aren't like the way he plays it.
But HERE they are! All previous generations (b4 a bit over 100yrs ago) LOST their greats entirely. We have recordings of Lincolns voice! (Not that he was much of a singer) We are very fortunate. And I am especially grateful that I can listen ti this stunning old perfomance then flit across and listen to Aurouras magical rendition.
No they aren't. You can't say they are lost when you can instantly enjoy them any time you like. The internet makes performances like this available to millions of people in a way that has never existed before.
Love this! I don't think the enchanting flow of this song can be replicated. I've heard many versions by various artists... not even close. I agree the guitarist is awesome! But there's something more. The rests are so precise and perfect! So perfect that I can only compare it to the time the tide takes to draw back water before the next wave crashes.
Oh that was so beautifully said God bless you for saying that this song is the closest to my heart I am a Nature Boy from Amsterdam I Traveled very far to Hawaii, and through God I Found Love
- Nat King Cole always will be a great singer and his music are still living inside our heart so this kind of music will be are still living for ever and ever for the eternity 🍻
Approaching my 77th birthday with much trepidation I watch this and realize how much an impact Nat King Cole has had on me - with the When I Fall In Love in the fifties casting its magic on me as a teenager and Nature Boy also. A mention in the weekend papers - it was the Sunday Times or the Saturday telegraph who had an excellent article on the composer of this song passing away - brought it all back to me. Magic. Such a beautifull man. Thank you You Tube.
The strange encounter of Nat King Cole with Eden Ahbez... "In the late 40s, there was a rumor that there was a "hermit," disenchanted and disillusioned with the world, supposedly "out-of-sync" with society, living in California in a cave under one of the L’s in the Hollywood sign. No one really cared about this strange man, until one night in 1947, when someone tried to enter backstage at the Lincoln Theater in Los Angeles. Nat King Cole was playing there, and the man said he had something for Cole. Of course, the employees didn't let the strange man see Cole, so he gave whatever he had to Cole's manager. What he had was a song sheet, which Cole would later take a look at. Cole liked the song and wanted to record it, but he had to find the strange man. When asked, the people who saw the man said he was strange, indeed, with shoulder-length hair and beard, wearing sandals and a white robe. Cole finally tracked him down in New York City. When Cole asked him where he was staying, the strange man declared he was staying at the best hotel in New York - outside, literally, in Central Park. He said his name was eden ahbez (spelled all in lower-case letters). The song he gave Cole was titled, "Nature Boy." It became Cole's first big hit, and was soon covered by other artists through the years, from Frank Sinatra and Sarah Vaughan to Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga, most recently. Of course, the media went crazy about the strange, mysterious man who handed Nat King Cole, one of the biggest hits during that time. Everyone went out to try to find out more about him. What little they found was that he was once an orphan, who never stayed at one place very long, living in various foster homes. He explained he just never fit in and was always searching, for something. ["They say he wandered very far... Very far, over land and sea..." They found out he would hop freight trains and walked across country several times, subsisting solely on raw fruits and vegetables, then one day he completely vanished. ["A little shy and sad of eye... But very wise was he..."] He finally showed up again in the Hollywood hills. When a policeman stopped the strange, long-haired man with beard, sandals, and robe, ahbez simply replied, "I look crazy but I'm not. And the funny thing is that other people don't look crazy but they are." ["And then one day... One magic day he passed my way..."] No one seems to really know why he selected Cole, there were some rumors that he came out of hiding when he began to hear about the racism going on and trouble throughout the world, and he thought "King" was the best person at that time to pass his message along. ["While we spoke of many things... Fools and Kings..."] When he was asked about racism, he replied, "Some white people hate black people, and some white people love black people, some black people hate white people, and some black people love white people. So you see it's not an issue of black and white, it's an issue of Lovers and Haters." It was that theme of love that he continued to talk about, what was missing in the world, and what would be needed in the future if we are to survive. ahbez would eventually get his message out, especially after the counter-culture finally caught up with him and the hippie movement began, when other artists such as Donovan, Grace Slick, and the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson sought him out. He also wrote songs for Eartha Kitt and had another song recorded by Sam Cooke. In 2009, Congressman Bill Aswad recited the last lyrics of the song before the Vermont House of Representatives at the passing of his state's same-sex marriage bill in '09. Author Raymond Knapp described the track as a "mystically charged vagabond song" whose lyrics evoked an intense sense of loss and haplessness, with the final line delivering a universal truth, described by Knapp as "indestructible" and "salvaged somehow from the perilous journey of life." ["This he said to me... The greatest thing you'll ever learn... Is just to love and be loved in return."] ➖➖➖ "George Alexander Aberle (April 15, 1908 - March 4, 1995), known as eden ahbez, was an American songwriter and recording artist of the 1940s to 1960s, whose lifestyle in California was influential in the hippie movement. He was known to friends simply as ahbe. Ahbez composed the song "Nature Boy", which became a No. 1 hit for eight weeks in 1948 for Nat "King" Cole. Living a bucolic life from at least the 1940s, he traveled 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. In the mid 1950s, he wrote songs for Eartha Kitt, Frankie Laine, and others, as well as writing some rock-and-roll novelty songs. In 1957, his song "Lonely Island" was recorded by Sam Cooke, becoming the second and final Ahbez composition to hit the Top 40. In 1959, he began recording instrumental music, which combined his signature somber tones with exotic arrangements and (according to the record sleeve) "primitive rhythms". He often performed bongo, flute, and poetry gigs at beat coffeehouses in the Los Angeles area. In 1960, he recorded his only solo LP, Eden's Island, for Del-Fi Records. This mixed beatnik poetry with exotica arrangements. Ahbez promoted the album through a coast-to-coast walking tour making personal appearances, but it sold poorly. During the 1960s, ahbez released five singles. Grace Slick's band, the Great Society, recorded a version of "Nature Boy" in 1966 and ahbez was photographed in the studio with Brian Wilson during a session for the Smile album in early 1967. Later that year, British singer Donovan sought out ahbez in Palm Springs, and the two wanderers shared a reportedly "near-telepathic" conversation. In the 1970s, Big Star's Alex Chilton recorded a version of "Nature Boy" with the photographer William Eggleston on piano. The song was finally released as a bonus track on the 1992 Rykodisc re-release of the album Third/Sister Lovers. In 1974, ahbez was reported to be living in the Los Angeles suburb of Sunland, and he owned a record label named Sunland Records, for which he was recording under the name "Eden Abba." From the late 1980s until his death, ahbez worked closely with Joe Romersa, an engineer/drummer in Los Angeles. The master tapes, photos, and final works of eden ahbez are in Romersa's possession. Ahbez died on March 4, 1995, of injuries sustained in a car accident, at the age of 86. Another album, Echoes from Nature Boy, was released posthumously."
It's actually a song by eden ahbez (real name: George Aberle) about a German hermit living in the US named Bill Pester (real name: Friedrich Wilhelm Pester). Pester was a follower of a German back-to-nature philosophy called Lebensreform (hence the title).
@@minskdhaka I remember being told about its provenance when I was a wee tad and the song was a popular hit. My mother (...or was it my next-door neighbor) told me he was a "hermit" who lived in a hit in Central Park. Improbably, but who knows (i.e. the Central Park part of it!)
Great live version of the most beautiful song. Terrific guitar from Irving Ashby. My father was a great Nat fans so I've listened to this record from being a baby in the late 1950s. Still blows me away. That voice!
My mother sang this song to me when I was a boy. Anytime I entered her presence she would just start singing this song. I was her first of four children and her only son. You’re gone, mom, but I can still hear you and will always hear you singing this song to me.
Not only is this a gorgeous song that is very dear to my heart (courtesy of one of my favorite artists of all time) but the guitarist is KILLER. Wish I had chops like that on the instrument! (His predecessor Oscar Moore was also wonderful. Check out some early Nat King Cole Trio recordings if you haven't already heard his work with Mr. Cole, circa 1940's.)
My dear late dad saw Nat LIVE once he said it was unforgetable (excuse the pun). Dad called me his 'nature boy' and said this song was for me. I hae always loved being outdoors and caring for animals, I am still that and a vegetarian. We lost dad in June to this virus. RIP dad I hope you meet Nat again up there.
