"I Loved You Once In Silence"

"I Loved You Once In Silence" from Camelot. Performed by Julie Andrews.

May I start by saying how much I adore Julie Andrews?!?!?! What a voice. I have always loved her. She sings this song beautifully...anyway....
I have always thought this song was pretty, but until I sat down with it tonight, I never realized how simple it was. The song never really goes anywhere, there is never a big climax. The chord progression is very basic. The accompaniment is very nice, but it is pretty much the same throughout the song. It is always very soft and mellow. It doesn't really do a lot to help out the vocalist, which does make the song a little more challenging. The cadences are always very obvious at the end of phrases. It is usually a PAC, and the do sol do stands out terribly in the bass line.
So why am I writing about it, you ask? The melody. I am a firm believer that most songs are memorable because they have a nice and catchy melody. This melody is mostly stepwise, and there are no difficult intervals or big leaps, and it doesn't get particualarly high in the soprano range. But it is beautiful, and peaceful. It is the kind of melody that you can close your eyes and lay back and be perfectly relaxed. It is the kind of melody that you could sing to a baby while you rock it to sleep at night. It is wonderfully legato and smooth. The accompaniment is just gorgeous underneath it. The sheer simpleness and honesty of it makes it beautiful.
I think a lot of times we lose track of the fact that things don't have to be complicated or difficult to perform to be considered wonderful. We shy away from simple chord progressions when we compose because we don't think they are interesting enough. Sometimes, the most beautiful things are the simple things.