Date: May 9, 1964
Weeks: 1
Louis Armstrong is always a delight. He's got a unique and appealing voice, and his jazzy musical aesthetic is a great match. This song is the title song from the musical "Hello Dolly," which was new when this song was on top of the charts. This appears to have been made as a way to promote the musical. I'm not entirely sure how to review this song.
Okay, well, the music is a pleasant little jazz backing band. You've got a strummy ukelele, a string bass, light drums, and of course a couple trumpets providing the primary musical interest. It's pleasant. I'm not sure it's really all that interesting. It's a good thing this song is only two minutes long, because I don't think it could hold my interest very much longer.
Apparently this song comes from a part of the musical where Dolly returns to a fancy restaurant where she is a regular, and this is a song sung to her by the servers at the restaurant. So the line "it's so nice to have you back where you belong" is intended to indicate affection for a popular person, rather than necessarily being an indication of romantic affection. And it's okay at that. The line "Find her an empty lap, fellas" seems like one of those lines that doesn't work very well outside the context of the musical, where we don't necessarily know anything about the character of Dolly. There aren't enough clues within the song to help me figure it out, either.
My verdict: Don't like it. It's fine, but it doesn't work for me outside the context of the musical. Louis Armstrong does a great job, but I'm just not that interested in listening to this song.
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