Another summer song I loved as a child, but now cast a more jaundiced eye upon. If you compare it with Cole's work here, you can hear the subtlety has been pretty much leached away. What he gained in return was a much larger audience, and hence more money to take care of his family. Which is hard to argue with.
In all fairness, this recording is a nice example of craft in the arts of songwriting and arranging, when the intent is just to grab the biggest audience possible. The song is easy to remember, easy to understand, has a positive feeling, etc. The arrangement has a zillion parts which never get in each other's way and all contribute to the overall effect. A bunch of smart people worked hard and spent a lot of money to make this record, and it succeeded for them by earning even more money. Think of it as the aural equivalent of a summer blockbuster movie. Nat Cole was as important to its success as Shia LaBeouf was to the latest Transformers movie: he's the person the audience remembers and a key element, but is not the person who put it all together. Maybe they should have used this song in the latest Transformers movie...or maybe not.
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