“Que Sera, Sera” is a slippery little song – its fresh optimism seems to conceal something a shade darker (the sentiment could as easily front a glum shrug as a carefree grin), but in the lyric only good things do seem to happen, so any fatalism you find is of the chirpy variety. It’ll all work out in the long run! In the real world such homilies might be dangerous, or at least an excuse to sit on one’s arse all day (as if I needed one). But pop music, thankfully, is not the real world.
Doris Day treats “Que Sera, Sera” as quite the happiest song ever written – a “Favourite Things” of predestiny and human impotence. She carries the arrangement along with her – the music-box tinkling behind the “Now I have children of my own'” verse just an extra tier in a wedding-cake production. And of course the chorus is indelible. The result is that rare thing, a pop song trying to sound less deep than it is.
Score: 7
[Logged in users can award their own score]