"Let the Rest of the World Go By"

Grandma and Grandpa loved the song "Let the Rest of the World Go By," and were particularly fond of the instrumental version from the film "Out of Africa." They used to sing it to us when we were little, and sometimes they'd hum it and dance together in their living room. Through them, I grew to love this song. One summer when I was home from college, I searched around on iTunes and bought a dozen or so of their favorite songs from years gone by, and made them a mix CD. I put the version from "Out of Africa" as the final track on the CD, and I still remember them swaying in each others' arms while they listened to it.

Grandma and Grandpa used to tell me that when they first moved to California - my Dad was a young kid at the time - they sang it the whole car ride across the country. There's a line that goes, "We'll build a little nest, somewhere in the west," so it became their theme song for the trip as they moved to the west coast after having lived primarily in the south.

Shortly after Grandma passed away, I found myself listening to this song for the first time in a few years, and I wrote a little "arrangement" (if you can call it that) for violin - basically just the nice, shmaltzy thirds and sixths everywhere just like on the recording I have. At the request of my Dad, I'll be playing it at Grandma's service in California this weekend.

The instrumental version I love is the John Barry arrangement, and it's available on iTunes, or you can listen to it for free on Rhapsody (track 10).

The words are:

With someone like you, a pal good and true
I'd like to leave it all behind and go and find
Some place that's known to God alone
Just a spot to call our own
We'll Find perfect peace, where joys never cease
Out there beneath a kindly sky
We'll build a sweet little nest somewhere in the west
And let the rest of the world go by

Here's a vocal version, featuring Dick Haymes:



It's a nice song. I love how music can be so dated, and yet so timeless.