♩Louis Armstrong - What A Wonderful World (Spoken Intro)

「『素晴らしき世界』とあなたは歌うが、世界を見渡すと、どうしてもそんな気にはなれないんですが」との問いに「(前略) 秘訣は愛だ」と答えるイントロに語りのあるバージョン。語りの有無で曲の印象が大きく異なる。

 録音時に同席していたレコード会社の社長は "Hello, Dolly!" のような Swingy で Pop な曲調を求めていたらしく、スローな曲調のセッションを中断しようと試みたものの、スタジオから締め出されてしまったそうだ (Wikipedia)。

[Spoken Introduction]

Some of you young folks been saying to me
Hey Pops, what you mean, what a wonderful world?
How about all them wars all over the place?
You call them wonderful?
And how about hunger and pollution?
That ain't so wonderful either.

Well how about listening to old Pops for a minute.
Seems to me, it aint the world that's so bad
but what we're doin' to it.
And all I'm saying is, see, what a wonderful world
it would be, if only we'd give it a chance.
Love baby, love. That's the secret, yeah.
If lots more of us loved each other,
we'd solve lots more problems.
And then this world would be a gasser*.
That's what old Pops keeps saying.

*Gasser: Something extraordinarily pleasing.

♩Louis Armstrong - What a Wonderful World - Live, 1967
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfuw3CZQuwk