EYDIE GORME - MY WORLD KEEPS GETTING SMALLER EVERY DAY

In 1970, Eydie Gorme recorded a big ballad penned by Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield. “My World Keeps Getting Smaller Every Day” proves that it’s hard to sing BIG when the topic is small. The melody is bombastic and may have done better if the lyrics were more dire. Think, “Anyone Who Had a Heart” or “Delilah.”

The lyrics are actually rather pensive, working better with some sad little “Charade” melody and without trumpets are thudding drums. Poor Eydie, she’s got windmills in her mind, she’s got green icing flowing in her brain, and those were the days my friend:

“In the lonely of the morning when I’m waking up. I find you standing at the bottom of my coffee cup. I see you on the freeway when I’m driving in the car. Downtown when I’m shopping I just turn and there you are…”

And there you are, a song that did sort of follow established big ballad patterns, and literally strike familiar chords that worked well in other songs. Listen to it, and you’ll be thinking, “some of these notes are awfully familiar…some of the effects, like the boom-boom drums that stop the song with fatal punctuation…where have I hear this shit before?”

Which doesn't mean you won't enjoy this thing. Oh, what a gormless Gorme-less world we live in. Unlike your average Viley Virus, Arreola Grande or Taylor Twat piece, THIS song DOES have a melody.

It’s possible that five years earlier, and via Dusty Springfield, this thing could’ve had a chance. By 1970 Eydie was rather long in the tooth for 45 rpm glory, and “the kids” were the ones buying most of the singles, leaving Dusty, Tom Jones, and even Streisand to hope for album sales without the kickstart of an AM radio hit.

Indeed, for Eydie, and her husband Steve Lawrence, and a lot of Vegas acts of the day, the world was getting smaller. No “Ed Sullivan Show” or “Hollywood Palace,” no write-ups about being a fresh new face, and not much interest in a formula that had been flogged practically to death by Mancini and Bacharach all through the 60’s. And saddest of all, no matter how small your world gets, you still might not be able to find a cake left out in the rain.

EYDIE GORME MY WORLD GETS SMALLER EVERY DAY (ps, is Pluto still a planet?)