The Lyrics of Dory Previn

[PalJoey]

Posted: 2/7/14 at 7:52am

Here's Dory and Andre Previn before Mia broke up their marriage. In 1969, when she was 24, Mia became pregnant by Andre, who was still married to Dory Previn. Dory had a mental breakdown and was institutionalized, during which she received electroshock therapy.


DORY AND ANDRE




MIA AND ANDRE




DORY's SONG TO MIA AND ANDRE, as they embarked on their adulterous affair:


http://youtu.be/vmi7eeCNVvo

Lyrics to "Beware Of Young Girls":

Beware
Of young girls
Who come to the door
Wistful and pale
Of twenty and four
Delivering daisies
With delicate hands

Beware
Of young girls
Too often they crave
To cry
At a wedding
And dance
On a grave

She was my friend
My friend
My friend
She was invited to my house
Oh yes
She was
And though she knew
My love was true
And
No ordinary thing
She admired
My wedding ring
She admired
My wedding ring

She was my friend
My friend
My friend
She sent us little silver gifts
Oh yes
She did
Oh what a rare
And happy pair
She
Inevitably said
As she glanced
At my unmade bed
She admired
My unmade bed
My bed

Beware
Of young girls
Who come to the door
Wistful and pale
Of twenty and four
Delivering daisies
With delicate hands
Beware
Of young girls
To often they crave
To cry
At a wedding
And dance
On a grave


She was my friend
My friend
My friend
I thought her motives were sincere
Oh yes
I did
Ah but this lass
It came to pass
Had
A dark and different plan
She admired
My own sweet man
She admired
My own sweet man

We were friends
Oh yes
We were
And she just took him from my life
Oh yes
She did
So young and vain
She brought me pain
But
I'm wise enough to say
She will leave him
One thoughtless day
She'll just leave him
And go away
Oh yes

Beware
Of young girls
Who come to the door
Wistful and pale
Of twenty and four
Delivering daisies
With delicate hands

Beware
Of young girls
To often they crave
To cry
At a wedding
And dance
On a grave

Beware of young girls
Beware of young girls
Beware

Updated On: 2/8/14 at 07:52 AM

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 2/7/14 at 3:15pm

Here's Dory and Andre Previn before Mia broke up their marriage

I think Andre had a little something to do with it too.

Updated On: 2/7/14 at 03:15 PM

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 2/7/14 at 3:22pm

Poor Dory Previn. She really was kind of a hanger-on that got lucky, wasn't she?

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 2/7/14 at 3:22pm

Was Mia seen for the Julian Beck role in Poltergeist 2: The Other Side?

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 2/7/14 at 3:23pm

It takes two to tango.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 2/7/14 at 3:27pm

Not true.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 2/7/14 at 3:49pm

Andre Previn cheated on his wife Dory out of his own free will.

Where's Dory's song on the cheating husband?

Just sayin'



Updated On: 2/7/14 at 03:49 PM

[dreaming]

Posted: 2/7/14 at 4:29pm

Dory looks an awful lot like Mia Farrow there.

[Liza's Headband]

Posted: 2/7/14 at 5:04pm

No, Carlos. Only the women can be at fault for these kinds of things. The men just can't help it as it's in their nature!

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 2/7/14 at 7:07pm

Everybody I know who has had a partner cheat on them with a close friend said it was worse to lose the close friend.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 2/7/14 at 8:11pm

My cousin Arlene always said Dory Previn was an unrecognized genius of a singer-songwriter on the level of a Laura Nyro or a Joni Mitchell.

Arlene's favorite song was "Yada Yada (La Scala)," which used the phrase "yada yada" way before Seinfeld and still has a lot of insight into male-female relationships--and same-sex ones too, for that matter.

http://youtu.be/gJpgW2cRIsk


Yada, yada, yada, yada, yada...

Let's stop talking, talking, talking
Wasting precious time!
Just a lot of empty noise
That isn't worth a dime.

Words of wonder, words of whether
Should we/shouldn't we be together?

Yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada...

Let's stop talking, talking, talking,
Taking up our lives.
Saying things that don't make sense--
Hoping help arrives!

Curse my questions!
Damn your qualms!
Tomorrow they could be
Dropping bombs and we go

Yada, yada, yada, yada, yada...

So we sit at a restaurant table...
Discussing reasons we're unable
To commit...

That's not it!

All I want is to please and enjoy you!
What makes you think I'll be out to destroy you
If you commit?

That's not it!

Is it something you sense
Underneath my defenses
That makes me a threat?

That's not it--and yet...
Suppose that's it?

Ow, wow, wow...
I don't want to think about that now

Let's stop talking, talking, talking
Every lame excuse,
Justifying alibiing--
Listen what's the use?

The sparrow chirps,
And the chipmunk chatters
And we go on as mad as a hatter...

Nothing at all gets said.
Talk to me please--in bed!
Where it matters.

Yada, yada, yada, yada, yada...
Yada, yada, yada, yada, yada...
Yada, yada, yada, yada, yada!

Updated On: 2/7/14 at 08:11 PM

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 2/7/14 at 8:15pm

Dory Previn was only ever just a name to me, but now I'm intrigued.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 2/7/14 at 8:15pm

And, of course, Dory's greatest stroke of genius was her lyric to the theme from Valley of the Dolls.


http://youtu.be/WvNcsHKciP0

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 2/7/14 at 9:03pm

PJ, I happened to notice the other day that an early form of "yada yada" may be heard in ALLEGRO, from 1947. (In the show, the expression appears as "yatata yatata", but its meaning is the same.)

I'm not an expert on Mrs. Previn (except for the VALLEY OF THE DOLLS song), but I think the two lyrics you repeated here are rather great. And the following is brilliant:

"Beware
Of young girls
Too often they crave
To cry
At a wedding
And dance
On a grave"

Updated On: 2/7/14 at 09:03 PM

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 2/7/14 at 10:06pm

Here are some of Dory and Andre's most famous collaborations:



Updated On: 2/7/14 at 10:06 PM

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 2/7/14 at 10:14pm

[PalJoey]

Posted: 2/7/14 at 10:36pm

This lyric has haunted me ever since I first heard Dionne Warwick sing it.

In my mind it has gone from being drug-addled camp to being pure poetry to being camp about being drug-addled and, ultimately, I think it ends up clearly as poetic.

All I know is that there have been times in my life when the lines (and Andre Previn's haunting melody) about "When did I stop feeling sure, feeling safe / And start wondering why...wondering why...?" made so much sense that it hurt. And I know too many people, lost to various drugs, who got "caught in the game" and never got off the merry-go-round and never got hold of their pride again.

But, camp or poetry, the incomplete questions sure as hell are daring in style and substance for a 1960s pop song.



THEME FROM VALLEY OF THE DOLLS


Gotta get off...gonna get...
Have to get off from this ride.
Gotta get hold...gonna get...
Need to get hold of my pride.

When did I get--? Where did I--?
How was I caught in this game?
When will I know? Where will I--?
How will I think of my name?

When did I stop feeling sure, feeling safe
And start wondering why...wondering why...?
Is this a dream? Am I here--where are you?
What's in back of the sky? Why do we cry?

Gotta get off...gonna get
Out of this merry-go-round.
Gotta get off...gonna get...
Need to get on where I'm bound.

When did I get--? Where did I--?
Why am I lost as a lamb?
When will I know? Where will I--?
How will I learn who I am?

Is this a dream? Am I here--where are you?
Tell me, when will I know? How will I know?
When will I...know why?

Updated On: 2/7/14 at 10:36 PM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 2/7/14 at 10:57pm

And I adore Dionne Warwick's recording of "You're Gonna Hear From Me" (from Inside Daisy Clover), even though it's not Dory's most profound lyric and it's not Dionne's best recording. (But what Dionne does at the modulation around 2:55 is astonishing.)

http://youtu.be/izcEzWXF13Q

[NYadgal]

Posted: 2/7/14 at 11:02pm

I've got to admit - this thread is a fascinating read and education.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 2/7/14 at 11:19pm

When you watch the film of VALLEY and hear the haunting theme being sung by Dionne throughout the film you will notice that through Dory's lyrics it is a comment on what stage the character of Anne Welles is in her life, what she is feeling and what she is going through. It actually supports the narrative. It was an ingenious use of the song.
The recorded version as such isn't complete. The only true complete version only exists in the film.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 2/7/14 at 11:23pm

Also, for anyone who owns the original soundtrack album it is Dory herself who sings the theme song. Dionne's record company (at the time) Scepter Records refused to loan her for the soundtrack album that was released on 20th Century-Fox Records.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 2/7/14 at 11:27pm

"With My Daddy In The Attic"...the song Woody Allen refers to. There's even a clarinet.

[NoName3]

Posted: 2/7/14 at 11:28pm

You are prescient, PJ. Allen has written what he says will be his final rebuttal to the charges in an op-ed in today's NY Times and it includes this:

"Undoubtedly the attic idea came to her [Farrow] from the Dory Previn song, 'With My Daddy in the Attic.' It was on the same record as the song Dory Previn had written about Mia’s betraying their friendship by insidiously stealing her husband, André, 'Beware of Young Girls.'"

Woody Allen Speaks Out Updated On: 2/7/14 at 11:28 PM

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 2/7/14 at 11:34pm

Here's another sweet and haunting theme featuring the lyrics of Dory Previn: COME SATURDAY MORNING from the film THE STERILE CUCKOO. Music by Fred Karlin.


COME SATURDAY MORNING by THE SANDPIPERS

[PalJoey]

Posted: 2/7/14 at 11:36pm

She wrote that song about daddy in the attic in 1970.

"Come Saturday Morning" is one of my all-time favorite songs--and one of my favorite of Liza Minnelli's recordings!

Updated On: 2/7/14 at 11:36 PM