March and Water

It's really feeling truly spring like in San Francisco, and what song is more fitting for spring's return, new life and revival than Águas de Março and what version is more definitive than the original by Elis Regina and Tom Jobim? Watching it, it's hard to believe that this woman, sometimes called the Brazilian Billie Holiday, would die a few years later.


I'm almost equally fond of this version in Italian by the great, always melodramatic Mina Mazzini in a relatively subdued -- for her -- take on the song.

Then there is the truly bizarre take on the tune by Art Garfunkel where the tune clearly loses a lot in translation. For whatever vocal abilities Art may have, here he sounds like he's reciting a shopping list. Yet, there is something about it that has always oddly intrigued me.