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Click on the ‘Play’ button above to hear the song as you read the lyrics via the links below. If the player doesn’t start straight away, wait and then press the ‘Play’ button again.
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Chet Baker is from the album The Chelsea Hotel#4 by ‘Les Paul’s’ (The Paul’s) that is the 4th and final album in the series of albums about those celebrities, actors, artists, writers, poets, songwriters and musicians that have stayed at the iconic New York through the years or have a strong connection to the hotel.
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“Chet Baker” provides a stunning tonal contrast. Here, the duo turns inward, crafting a delicate ballad that floats on brushed percussion and plaintive piano. The lyrics are impressionistic, haunted by the fragility of beauty and the ache of memory – much like Baker himself. The refrain “Blow from your soul” becomes a rallying cry, an invocation of raw authenticity that threads throughout the record.
– Read the just published Jamsphere magazine review our album HERE
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download the track Chet Baker on Bandcamp HERE
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You can download the album The Chelsea Hotel#4 at download stores HERE and on Bandcamp HERE
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Watch the video promo of Chet Baker on YouTube HERE
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Chet Baker lyrics
They’d found him dead on the street
He fell out of the window of his hotel suite
His body was full of smack and coke
He once had been hailed as Jazz’s Great White Hope
He’d once looked as handsome as Kerouac and James Dean
Later in his life his face became drawn and junkie mean
He looked like a completely different man
Chet Baker died at 58 on a street in Amsterdam
He’d been called that Great White Cat, the Prince of Cool
He was a jazz star who made teenage girls drool
He’d played alongside Dizzie, Davis and Bird too
His reputation as a great trumpet player grew and grew
Blow Chet blow, blow from your soul
Let them feel those notes shoot through their souls
Blow Chet blow, blow Chet blow
He starred on Hollywood’s silver screen
But to be a star in films wasn’t his dream
He went back to play the smokey clubs where he’d found fame
Where he became one of jazz’s top 5 names
One day the devil came and wouldn’t go away
And made him need and crave every day
His addiction took over his whole life
He went with other women and forgot his wife
Everywhere he went he was thrown into a cell
He was deported by some countries as well
The public said his behaviour was appalling
Oh how the mighty are falling, how the mighty are falling
He was attacked one night by men on the street
They damaged his mouth, and he lost 7 teeth
He couldn’t blow his trumpet his career was dead
He went and got a job pumping gas instead
A few years later he made his return
He was still an addict, lessons hadn’t been learned
He was still in demand for the way that he played
He was still playing in clubs till his dying day
Blow Chet blow, blow from your soul
Let them feel those notes shoot through their souls
Blow Chet blow, blow Chet blow
In an Amsterdam club he’d played Auld Lang Sine
And said that 87 was a great year reunited with his wife Diane
5 months later on the 13th of May
It turned out to be his unlucky day
Like so many others who had fallen before
Chet just couldn’t win his internal war
Another great artist left the stage
His name is written in history’s page
Blow Chet blow, blow from your soul
Let them feel those notes shoot through their souls
Blow Chet blow, blow Chet blow
Blow Chet blow, blow from your soul
Let them feel those notes shoot through their souls
Blow Chet blow, blow Chet blow
Music composed and performed by Paul Odiase BMI No. 1252265 (Switzerland)
Song lyrics by Paul Robert Thomas PRS No. 497904008 (London)
PRS Tunecode 868568GS
ISRC: US5UL2560082
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“Chet Baker” is a haunting tribute to the legendary jazz trumpeter and singer, capturing the brilliance, vulnerability, and ultimate tragedy of a man who became both a musical icon and a cautionary tale. The song traces Baker’s rise from the heights of jazz stardom — playing alongside Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and Charlie Parker — to the shadowed streets of addiction and personal hardship that would haunt him throughout his life.
The lyrics highlight both the public persona and the private struggles of Baker: the youthful charm that made him a star, his artistic triumphs on stage and screen, and the destructive forces of addiction that repeatedly interrupted his career. Refrains like “Blow Chet blow, blow from your soul” evoke his genius on the trumpet, turning his instrument into an extension of his life — each note a testament to both beauty and sorrow.
By recounting the injuries, deportations, and personal losses Baker endured, the song paints a full, human portrait: a man whose music transcended his flaws and whose spirit remained compelling until the end. “Chet Baker” is both celebration and elegy — a reminder that jazz, like life, can be exhilarating, fragile, and heartbreakingly fleeting.
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