“You Don’t Know What Love Is” by Kurt Elling
“You Don’t Know What Love Is” is based on the premise that in order to truly understand “what love is”, then one has to also experience heartbreak. Or perhaps a more euphemistic way of describing what’s being put forth is that emotional pain is part and parcel of being in love, so to speak.
That is to say that what the lyrics are indirectly implying is that the stronger your feelings for a person then the easier, and perhaps we can even say more likely it is for said individual to cause you anguish. But in reality, the vocalist also proceeds to speak to actually being broken up from the person you love. With that in mind, this piece is in fact romantic in nature.
This song was written for a specific movie. So it is possible that all being argued fits into the plot of that film (despite it actually being a comedy). Either way, the lyrics are quite depressing even if, from the perspective of the vocalist, truthful. And by the time all is said and done what it may actually be speaking to, despite having been dropped way back in the 1940s, is the ubiquity of romantic heartbreak.
“You Don’t Know What Love”
You Don’t Know What Love Is is actually a song that originally came out in 1941. It was first recited by Carol Bruce (1919-2007) for the soundtrack of an Abbott and Costello film that was also released that same year entitled Keep ‘Em Flying.
The writer of this tune music-wise was Gene de Paul (1919-1988), with the lyrics being authored by Don Raye (1909-1985).
Kurt Elling
Meanwhile Kurt Elling is a singer from Chicago who specializes in jazz music and, being born in 1967, began officially dropping tracks in the early 1990s. And one interesting side note concerning his nonprofessional life is that in the mid-aughts, he bought a condo from fellow Chicagoan Barack Obama (who of course would go on to become President of the United States in 2009).
Indeed Kurt Elling, despite not being a household name, did prove notably successful from the early goings of his career, such as receiving six Grammy nominations between 1995 and 2001, one of which was for “Flirting with Twilight”, the album which features his cover of “You Don’t Know What Love Is”.
Elling produced that album alongside Laurence Hobgood and Bill Traut (1929-2014), with its label being Blue Note Records.
