I reflect on the impact that the late Tony Bennett’s music had on my life starting in my teenage years. Two songs stand out: “Because of You” and “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.”
Tony Bennett’s death at age 96 opened the floodgates of many personal memories.
When I was sixteen years old, I entered a college located hundreds of miles from my home town of Alexandria, Virginia. Once there, I joined a fraternity, and the recording of Bennett’s first hit song “Because Of You” was a central feature of every weekend “frat party.”
Each time I hear that Bennett standard today, I am transported back in time to the Beta Theta Pi house where I am once again surrounded by my fraternity “brothers” and a host of young women who traveled to our campus from nearby colleges and universities. “Because Of You” will forever evoke the sweetness of that long ago and far away time and place.
Tony Bennett’s death at age 96 opened the floodgates of many personal memories.
When I was sixteen years old, I entered a college located hundreds of miles from my home town of Alexandria, Virginia. Once there, I joined a fraternity, and the recording of Bennett’s first hit song “Because Of You” was a central feature of every weekend “frat party.”
Each time I hear that Bennett standard today, I am transported back in time to the Beta Theta Pi house where I am once again surrounded by my fraternity “brothers” and a host of young women who traveled to our campus from nearby colleges and universities. “Because Of You” will forever evoke the sweetness of that long ago and far away time and place.
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