Here's to You (song)
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"Here's to you" is a song by Joan Baez, released in 1971 as part of the soundtrack of the film Sacco e Vanzetti. The lyrics are by Baez herself and the music is by Ennio Morricone.
Background
The song is a tribute to two anarchists of Italian origin, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti that were sentenced to death by a United States court in the 1920s. The consensus of critical opinion has concluded since that the ruling was based on abhorrence to their anarchist political beliefs rather than on any proof that they committed the robbery and murders they were accused of.[1][2] The case is known as the Sacco and Vanzetti Affair.
The song is Part 3 of a 3-part piece, Ballad of Sacco and Vanzetti composed for the soundtrack of the film directed by Giuliano Montaldo. The lyrics are taken from an actual letter by Bartolomeo Vanzetti: "Father, yes, I am a prisoner. Fear not to relay my crime. The crime is loving the forsaken. Only silence is shame". This inspired Baez to write the lyrics. Music by Ennio Morricone, the composer of a great number of film soundtracks and film scores, is the repetition of the same musical line for 10 times, with the first two without any lyrics. In the United States and worldwide, the song became a veritable human rights movement in the 1970s.[citation needed]
It is also used in the 1977 quasi-documentary film Deutschland im Herbst, accompanying footage of the 1977 funeral march for Red Army Faction members Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe that had died in prison (see German Autumn). Besides the film Sacco e Vanzetti, the song also appears in the 2004 film The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.[3][4] The song was also used in the video game Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots as the closing theme as well as the opening and closing of Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes.[5]
Covers
The Israeli singer Daliah Lavi sang it in English, French and German.[citation needed] Swedish singer-songwriter Agnetha Fältskog recorded the song in German and released it as a single in 1972, entitled Geh' mit Gott. In 1997, Nana Mouskouri interpreted it with Les Enfoirés starting with a classical rendering that develops into a blues song, intermittent with versions of Georges Moustaki in French and finally in English.[citation needed]. In 2011, Bandista covered the song with the name "Selam size" in their album "Daima!". For its appearance in the end credits of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, the song was arranged by long time series composer Harry Gregson-Williams and sung by Lisbeth Scott. The song was used again, in a form closer to its original, in Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes. Group Olympians sang it in Greek (1971) "Ευχές για σας" [6]
Hayley Westenra and Ennio Morricone perform Here's To You on the album Paradiso released 2011 and nominated for the Classic Brit Award 2012.
Corsica-based band L'Arcusgi used Here's to You music in their 2011 song Alba Nova (in corsican A New Dawn).