Broken Hearted Melody

There is lilt in the opening bars that feels almost like a children's song — deceptively light, wound around a descending melody that Sarah Vaughan catches and transforms into something operatic by sheer force of character. Her voice here is in its most extroverted mode: wide, swooping, almost orchestral in its range, bending notes like taffy and releasing them at unexpected moments. The arrangement is lush mid-century pop, all strings and gentle swing, but the song's subject — heartbreak recycled into a tune you can't stop humming — gives it a layered emotional texture. Vaughan seems to be commenting on the song even as she sings it, her phrasing suggesting she finds the bittersweet irony amusing. There's something carnivalesque about it, joy and sadness sharing the same chord. You'd reach for this on an afternoon when you're not quite over something but have decided to be charming about it anyway — driving with the windows down, sunglasses on, treating your own sadness as a kind of theater.