"Here's to You" is a song by Ennio Morricone and Joan Baez, released in 1971 as part of the soundtrack of the film Sacco & Vanzetti, directed by Giuliano Montaldo. The song was written by Baez and Morricone themselves. The lyrics are only 4 lines of text, sung over and over.
Background
The song is a tribute to two anarchists of Italian origin, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti who 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 of their anarchist political beliefs rather than on any proof that they committed the robbery and murders of which they were accused. Despite the weaknesses of the jury's decision, correspondence by the novelist Upton Sinclair to his lawyer John Beardsley corroborated the guilty verdict against Sacco and Vanzetti in the murder of a payroll clerk and his guard. Sinclair told Beardsley that he had met with Sacco and Vanzetti's defense attorney, Fred Moore, and Moore informed the famous author that his clients were guilty as charged. Moreover, several forensic experts agreed that Sacco fired a shot from his Colt pistol at the scene of the crime. Thus, "Here's to You" contributes to the popular but questionable notion of the pair's innocence in the face of a supposedly bigoted American public. The case is known as the Sacco and Vanzetti Affair. The lyrics for Here's to You make use of a statement attributed to Vanzetti by Philip D. Strong, a reporter for the North American Newspaper Alliance who visited him in prison in May 1927, three months before his execution.
Use in other media
The song 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 who had purportedly committed suicide in prison. Besides the film Sacco e Vanzetti, the song also appears in the 2004 film The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.. The song also appeared as the opening song in 2014 game ' produced by Hideo Kojima, as well as the end theme for its predecessor ' which was also directed by Kojima.
Covers
In the United States and worldwide, the song became a veritable human rights movement in the 1970s. In 1972 the German songwriter Franz Josef Degenhardt sang the song under the title "Sacco und Vanzetti" with five verses. The Israeli singer Daliah Lavi sang it in English, French and German. Swedish singer-songwriter Agnetha Fältskog recorded the song in German and released it as a single in 1972, entitled Geh' mit Gott. In 1974 Mireille Mathieu covered the song as "La Marche de Sacco et Vanzetti" on her album "Mireille Mathieu Chante Ennio Morricone". 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.. In 2011, Bandista covered the song with the name "Selam size" in their album "Daima!". There is also a cover from Mr. V, a band from Australia with Steve Depressio's doppelgänger featured as the lead singer 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. British composer Harry Gregson-Williams orchestrated a cover of Here's To You featuring vocals by Lisbeth Scott. This version is heard during the end credits of the 2008 game .
