This may be the best version of the song ever. This is the Essence of Film Noir.
You're sitting at a bar, bourbon in one hand cigarette in the other and a leggy blonde walks in. You try to look away because she's trouble, but you can't. You sit there with a sad smile on your face.....because you know your life just began.....Because you know your life just ended --- you suddenly realize that perhaps there IS such a thing as reading too many Raymond Chandler novels .
The music paints a scene in the mind. A man alone sits at the end of a bar. As he haunches over his drink, the brim of his fedora shades his eyes from the blue neon sign promoting the whiskey he's been nursing. Below his hat band, his brow glistens with sweat from the summer night's heat. The air is thick with ozone, cheap perfume, and stale booze. In the far corner, almost hidden by shadows, a Wurlitzer spins-out "Harlem Nocturne." Sitting next to it, a shapely red-head sits alone in a booth and fixes her make-up. As her gorilla of a "date" for the evening and meal-ticket, heads toward the "facilities," his "stogie" cliched between his yellow teeth, she peeps through her Veronica Lake hair, scanning the bar for future prospects... just in case, ...after all "a girl's got to eat" - regularly! ...
Absolutely, the best version of “Harlem Nocturne” thatI have ever heard. No other version transports me to a time, and a place in that time, that I can never be, but feels so deep In my soul.