Perfect Circle - Mystery Solved (and sorry for the wait!)

 

Okay, y'all - what even is time these days, amirite? I posted this Mystery Song ten months ago?! Anyway, I solved it pretty soon afterwards, but I never got around to posting the answer. Here we are, finally!

The Mystery Song from November last year turns out to be REM's "Perfect Circle," from their 1983 album, Murmur. It's the last seven syllables of the chorus phrase

"standing too soon, shoulders high in the room."

Above, I've made a better rendition since the original from-the-top-of-my-head attempt.

The video below is queued up to the best example in the actual song, at about 2:38 mins:



It's not surprising to me that it was an REM song (they're historically one of the most frequent bands in my head) but, in an appeal for ideas from my friends on Facebook back when this happened, my friend Joe pointed out that the melody is similar to Barry Manilow's beautiful "Weekend in New England."

I absolutely think that my neural path memory in this case cleaved close to the Manilow tune on this recollection! And I do wonder if Berry/Buck/Mills/Stipe were unconsciously influenced by it, despite how cool they thought they were!

My online synth re-creation of the REM tune was misleading in a couple ways. One, the tempo of the actual song is slower, and two, the rhythm of the notes is steadier and less "waltzy" than I made it. These two things are also true of the Manilow song.

And here's "Weekend in New England" for comparison. The similar melodic interval is heard right away, and then gets repeated in the chorus:

 

Thanks everyone for playing along!

Artist: REM

Year: 1983

Rating: Luke Hot

Artist: Barry Manilow
Year: 1976 (Yet another song from the US Bicentennial year!)

Rating: Warm

 

Mystery Solved...and Stashed

That tune. That tune! That tune has been knocking around in my head for so many years. I blogged about it back in 2011. I thought it was from a really old movie, or a novelty riff from Camper Van Beethoven, or something vaguely Eastern European. People close to me have heard me whistle it spontaneously now and again for the better part of two decades, and any time I've inquired with anyone about that sequence of notes, I've gotten nothing but shrugs and blank stares.

I once thought I was hot on the trail, when I came across
this 1932 composition by Jerzy Petersburski. There are some segments in this Polish tango reminiscent of the tune, but I knew when I found it, I was still shooting in the dark. Bonus: a fragment of this tango also reminds me of the “When the dog bites, when the bee stings” portion of My Favorite Things from the Sound of Music.

So, after years of this nagging sensation as to the origins of this melody, last weekend, it happened. I ended up in a somewhat random conversation about the band Phish with my niece, niece-in-law, and my two nephews. My nephew Jon,* was recommending a podcast called Analyze Phish. In it, comedian Harris Wittels, Phish Phan, tries to convince comedian Scott Aukerman, Phish naysayer, why he should love Phish. In a parallel, I went through a Phish phase (college in Santa Cruz in the '90s, natch), while Jon is the non-fan.

So I decided to jump on Spotify and put together some Phish songs that I thought might appeal to Jon, just for the hell of it. I played snippets of songs from albums I used to own, to refamiliarize myself with the music. While scrolling through the tracks on the 1992 album A Picture of Nectar, I made a totally unexpected discovery at two minutes and two seconds into the song "Stash:"


And the motif repeats itself at the end of the song, at minute 6:49, accompanying the lyrics "Maybe so, and maybe not."

Oh my fucking god!! The thrill of finding the source of this tune was visceral. It was like unwrapping my new Darth Vader Collector’s Case on Chanukah, 1982.** Or the satisfaction of writing one’s thousandth tweet. It was gleeful! I still can’t explain the very definite six-note intro to the song snippet that I always whistle, which is clearly not anywhere to be found in the Phish song. I don't know if I composed it unconsciously, or if it's an amalgam of some other melody. It’s no matter. I can rest on this one.

Artist: Phish
Year: 1992
Rating: Luke Hot

* Jon guest blogged for us at The Songs in My Head a few years ago. You can read those posts right here.
** I just learned that Google only returns 1.5 million results for “Chanukah,” my preferred transliteration for the Jewish Festival of Lights, and returns 15.7 million for “Hanukkah.” Am I spelling it wrong? Maybe so, and maybe not.

Handy Man

It's been a year and a half since I last posted an entry here. I've been sucked into other social networking, and also trying to focus on, y'know, life and stuff. Maybe I'll pick up the pace here at The Songs in My Head, and maybe not. I tweet at twitter/soozenextthing with a touch more frequency, so follow me there!

For now, the lilting mellowness of a tune from my youth, with Mr. James Taylor's "Handy Man." The "comma, comma, comma, comma, come, come," refrain was ubiquitous on 70s radio, a song not to be confused with Sammy Davis Jr's "The Candyman" and the weirdness that is Neil Sedaka also spelling out that useful bit of punctuation. But I actually didn't realize that the song is much older. It's easy to attribute to JT, since he was mainly known for singing songs he'd also written, but the song was originally penned by roots rock and R&B singer Jimmy Jones and songwriter Otis Blackwell (who also wrote "Don't Be Cruel," "Great Balls of Fire," and many other very influential rock tunes). It's a case of the long, vague memory thread of a song that's been part of the culture for a very long time, arriving in my head one random day in 2015, in the form I'm most familiar with. Likely you've heard a couple of these versions of the tune yourself:

The 1959 original, by Jimmy Jones:



The chart-topper, later that same year, by Dell Shannon and his distinctive clavioline:



And who knew that Frank Black and Teenage Fanclub even banged out an indie cover of the song for a John Peel session record?



Artist: James Taylor
Year: 1977
Rating: Warm

Artist: Jimmy Jones
Year: 1959
Rating: Luke Hot

Artist: Del Shannon
Year: 1959
Rating: Luke Hot

Artist: Frank Black & Teenage Fanclub
Year: 1997
Rating: Warm

Wild Sage - Original Cover!

I've got a little time on my hands lately, so I'm noodling around with more songs. Here is my faithful rendition of "Wild Sage" by the Mountain Goats, from their album Get Lonely.

Last blogged on November 23, 2011.



Artist: Sooze
Written by: John Darnielle
Year: 2014, (2006, original)
Rating: Hot!

Fall On Me

Ask the sky, and ask the sky...

Artist: REM
Year: 1986
Rating: Hot!

Superball

(You'll have to play this video once to be amused by the hamster, and once to actually hear the song! "Nibbler" is quite distracting, but cute.)

This song has been in my head for weeks, but today was the first time I woke with it. Unbelievably, this is the first Aimee Mann song hitting the blog, despite the fact that she's one of my faves, and that I've seen her at least three times live. This morning, the song was ushered in by a dream: I was having a conversation with Aimee (clearly, we were on a first-name basis in my dream), and with some 20-somethings who had never heard her stuff. I was recommending albums they should listen to. The dream, in turn, I'm sure, had been prompted by a false sense of intimacy I'm feeling with her and with another indie rock hero of mine, Ted Leo, who have been touring together and being all lovey on the Twitter. Damn, wish I'd seen them on stage together.

Artist: Aimee Mann
Year: 1995
Rating: Luke Hot

Disturbance at the Heron House

Came to me suddenly after having been awake for a couple hours already. I was brushing my hair.

Artist: REM
Year: 1987
Rating: Luke Hot

Last Time in Love

I had a conversation with an old friend about love the other day. She had relayed a piece of advice her mom had given her, which went something like, "Finding people to fall in love with is easy; finding the person you can live with is much harder." This song has such a lovely, romantic quality to it that I can't deny, even as a poly person, that when you find "the one," you've fallen in love for the "last time." There is an undeniable beauty and a loss in that process, recognizing you'll never have those fireworks, that blissful limerent feeling, with anyone else again. I'm grateful, in my life, that I give myself permission to fall in love, in lust, when my animus moves me, and when it moves in my chosen partners. I don't have to sacrifice that newness. But the allure of exclusivity, of belonging to someone wholly, is indeed a powerful one. I also don't deny myself the opportunities, when they arise, of digging down deep and doing the work of intimacy. If love were just the easy fire of limerence, well, it wouldn't be love, now would it?

Artist: Sloan
Year: 2006
Rating: Luke Hot

Disco 2000

Your name is Deborah.
It never suited ya.

Artist: Pulp
Year: 1995
Rating: Hot!

Dear Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts

Been whistling this song all day. I was itching to hear some Spencer Krug, so I played the video for friends a few days ago. It's been stuck since. A lovely, brilliant earworm if there ever was one.

Artist: Wolf Parade
Year: 2005
Rating: Hot!

You and Me and the Moon

Joyous and sad. Certain Magnetic Fields songs will always remind me of Amber. She's moving into her new place this week. There are boxes of books stacked up in the hallway with labels like "Deutsche Literatur" and "Feminist Theory" written in Sharpie. Despite the complex circumstances of our break up,

The sound of your voice [still] sends shivers up my spine.

Artist: Magnetic Fields
Year: 1995
Rating: Hot!

Fading into Obscurity

Probably the last post for 2011, making it an even 100 for the year. A self-aware song about a welter-weight pop star rapidly becoming a has-been. One of my all-time faves from Sloan, the boys still topping the charts in my head.

Artist: Sloan
Year: 2006
Rating: Hot!

Untouchable Face

I presume that Ms. DiFranco came to mind because I was discussing her music with Scott the other day. This particular song seems suited to some mental tangents of late as well. The song is not analogous to what has happened between me and my recent ex-girlfriend, but certainly I've had some of that "Fuck you, and your untouchable face" feeling lately.

Also, I was at a post-Thanksgiving feast with a bunch of poly friends last night, and finding the company worthy of stirring several mild but burgeoning crushes. This song exemplifies the conflict in monogamy, in which someone is "taken" and therefore, "untouchable." This is not the case in my scene of choice. However, the combined factors of 1. a close-knit circle of friends wanting to maintain good boundaries with each other and 2. most folks in the circle seeming to have fairly full dance cards right now, leads me to assume that any number of those faces may very well continue to be untouchable. For now.

Artist: Ani DiFranco
Year: 1996
Rating: Luke Hot

Note: The main guitar line leads me right into The Who's Baba O'Riley. Funnily enough this is the second entry in which a song has strongly mingled in my mind with Baba O. The last time this happened was with REM's Supernatural Superserious. I guess this happens when your band is palpably influential over the course of decades.

Wild Sage

And when somebody asks if I'm okay
I don't know what to say
And along the highway
From cast-off innumerable seeds
Wild sage growing in the weeds.

One of my very favorite songs. Makes me cry almost every time I hear it. It names a lifelong conundrum of mine: am I okay, or am I not okay? Usually, the answer is both, simultaneously, just like wild sage growing in the weeds. But how should I answer the question today?

Artist: The Mountain Goats
Year: 2006
Rating: Hot!

White Winter Hymnal

This live performance just brought tears to my eyes. I've never even understood what the song is about, but the imagery is so arresting, and the harmonies so emotionally evocative. Here are a few suggestions as to the song's meaning.

Artist: Fleet Foxes
Year: 2008
Rating: Hot!

Sax Rohmer 1, Redux

Last in my head on June 13, 2011.

The lyric resounding in my head this morning:

Every moment leads toward its own sad end...yeah.

Artist: The Mountain Goats
Year: 2008
Rating: Hot!

The Ballad of the Sin Eater

You didn't think they could hate you now, did you?
Ah, but they hate you, they hate you 'cause you're guilty

One of my favorite songs. It's hard to avoid clichés while rocking out about imperialism, but Ted hits the mark every time.

Artist: Ted Leo & the Pharmacists
Year: 2003
Rating: Hot!

Sax Rohmer 1

I am coming home to you
with my own blood in my mouth
and I am coming home to you
if it's the last thing that I do.

Artist: The Mountain Goats
Year: 2008
Rating: Hot!

Witch's Wand

Been nine months since my last Sloan entry. Still, somewhat surprisingly, the top band in my head. I have one of my favorite Canadians to thank for that.

Artist: Sloan
Year: 2008
Rating: Luke Hot

Modern Man

Makes me feel like...

Artist: Arcade Fire
Year: 2010
Rating: Luke Hot