FROM THE ARCHIVE 375 -1966-

The Shadow Of Your Smile
Music written by John Alfred Mandel and lyrics by Paul Francis Webster.

Released 1966 on the album I’ve Got A Song For You. The song is available on CD on the 1988 collection Let Me Sing And I’m Happy, and it was released digitally remastered on Shirley Bassey – The Collection in 1993.

The song is from the soundtrack of the movie “The Sandpiper” 1965. The original soundtrack album contained ten variations of the theme and the song has been interpreted by many famous artists and jazz orchestras. The song received the Academy Award 1965 as “Best Song”.

Film Plot outline from the Internet

Elizabeth Taylor plays a beatnik mom living in a posh California surf-side home, raising her teenage son. She wants to home-school the boy, but the authorities won’t have it, so she sends him to a boarding school that is under the direction of an Episcopalian minister (Richard Burton) and headmaster. Taylor falls for the headmaster when she visits her son.

The composer John Alfred Mandel (Johnny Mandel, born 1925 in New York) began his career in the 1940’s playing trumpet and then trombone in jazz orchestras and big bands. He worked together with many famous musicians and bands like for example Woody Herman’s Second Herd (known from “Live At Carnegie Hall” 1973), Artie Shaw, Count Basie and many more. He wrote film credits like “The Sandpiper” and made arangements for Frank Sinatra and others.

The lyricist Paul Francis Webster (born 1907 in the USA) had his first hit 1932 with “Masquerade”. He worked successfully together with composers like Hoagy Carmichael and others. He won his first Academy Award in 1953 for “Secret Love,” written with Sammy Fain for the film “Calamity Jane”. His most famous song, also together with Sammy Fain, is the title theme to 1955’s “Love Is a Many Splendored Thing”, which earned Webster a second Oscar. (The movie actually received Oscars for “Best Song” and “Best Musical Score” and more.) And like mentioned before he received an Oscar for “The Sandpiper” together with Johnny Mandel 1965. Elected into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972, Webster died in Beverly Hills 1984.

Lyrics:

One day we walked along the sand
One day in early spring
You held a piper in your hand
To mend it’s broken wing
Now I remember many a day
And many a lonely mile
The echo of a piper song
The shadow of a smile

The shadow of your smile
When you are gone
Will colour all my dreams
And light the dawn

Look into my eyes, my love, and see
All the lovely things, you are, to me

Our wistful little star
Was far too high
A teardrop kissed your lips
And so did I

Now when I remember spring
All the joy that the love can bring
I will be remembering
The shadow of your smile

(Transcribed by Roman)