Two days ago I celebrated Thanksgiving with only my husband. We ate a nice dinner of turkey mole, then we watched the 1956 movie "High Society" on DVD. We both found it kind of boring, actually, but we enjoyed the music.

There's a scene in the movie where Dexter(Bing Crosby) and Tracey (Grace Kelly) are honeymooning on his yacht, the True Love. Dexter gets out his concertina, and they cuddle up and sing the song "True Love" by Cole Porter.

To the amazement of them all, the little song "True Love" was a great hit and sold over a million copies.

Well, no wonder! The way Bing Crosby sang it was so polished and romantic. When he sang the first 'to' he sang it in a special way, like an opera singer, and my heart melted. For a guy to trust a girl so much that he will sing 'to' like an opera singer, he must really love her.

How does an opera singer sing "To"? Puts an H sound after the T. I don't mean a TH like in "thin" or "this." I mean a T and then an H, as in boathook. It's subtle, but it's there.

To listen to it, you can go on YouTube and search for:

Bing Crosby true love

then choose from the various versions available.

I love singing, and I decided to listen to Bing and note everything special he did when recording "True Love." (It's true that Grace Kelly sang along for a bit, but she wisely duplicated his techniques.)

Suntanned, windblown,
honeymooners at least alone
feeling far above time (?)
Oh (swoopy, raspy)
how lucky we are...

While I give TO (opera singer's TO) you
and you give TO (ditto) me
true love, true love.
so on AN' on


IT'LL ("it'll is sung faster than you'd think)
always be true love, true love.
FOR (r is trilled) you
AND (Swoops) I have a guardian angel
on high with NOTHIN' to do
but TO (opera singer's "to") give to me
and to give to you
Love for ever true.
Love for ever TRUE (little warble)

I believe there are lessons in there for us all.