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

The Waiting, Redux x2

Perhaps in anticipation of my leave of absence from Facebook for a few weeks, this trusty tune popped into my head this morning, again. And, really, it's kind of a treat to listen to all the selections on my Tom Petty tag. Go ahead, enjoy yourself.

Last posted April 19, 2012.

Artist: Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
Year: 1981
Rating: Luke Hot

Can't Find My Way Home

This song often gets me to the point of tears.

Artist: Blind Faith
Year: 1969
Rating: Luke Hot

Major Tom (Coming Home)

Roller-waitresses in spaaaaace!

Artist: Peter Schilling
Year: 1983
Rating: Luke Hot

I Sing The Body Electric

I sing the body electric/I celebrate the me yet to come
I toast to my own reunion/When I become one with the sun

Indelibly in my head since I was about 14. An exultant anthem of youth, and yet another song reminiscent of my time in the Jewish teen scene, when everything was Dramatic and Intense And Amazing.

Artist: Michael Gore (writer); Performed in the movie Fame by Laura Dean, Irene Cara, Paul McCrane, Traci Parnell, and Eric Brockington
Year: 1980
Rating: Luke Hot

Night Shift

Came into my head the other day simply by talking to Scott about his schedule (he works graveyard). It's been circling in my mind for days. Watching the video made me tear up. RIP Marvin and Jackie.

Artist: The Commodores
Year: 1985
Rating: Luke Hot

Turn to Stone

ELO always reminds me of my ex-girlfriend's parents. One of the rock bands they returned to loving after having banned all pop culture for several years to do right by Jesus. Interesting that this song evokes the story of Lot in Genesis. Hopefully none of us will turn to stone for enjoying ELO; we might rock out, though.

Artist: ELO
Year: 1977
Rating: Luke Hot

Apologies for bad puns.

Father Christmas

Occupy Xmas! First holiday song that's been in my head this season that I haven't actually heard in the Ethers yet.

Artist: The Kinks
Year: 1977
Rating: Luke Hot

A Day In The Life

Artist: The Beatles
Year: 1967
Rating: Luke Hot

If You Could Read My Mind

This is one of those songs that makes me so deeply grateful that I was a kid in the 70s and got to hear it on the radio in my mom's car, in my sisters' cars, over and over again. The words are so seemlessly embedded in my head and so beautifully constructed that the specific, sad beauty is easily glossed over.

Artist: Gordon Lightfoot
Year: 1970
Rating: Luke 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

I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)

I love you and nobody else.

Since I'm not currently in a relationship, nor would I likely profess love to a One-and-Only, since I don't buy into that sort of thing, I have to assume that my unconscious is crooning for the love of coffee.

In and out my life/You come and you go
Leaving just your picture behind/And I've kissed it a thousand times

Oh, coffee.

Artist: The Four Tops
Year: 1965
Rating: Luke Hot

Someday, Someway, Redux

Last in my head on March 14, 2011.

Maybe I'll understand you.

I'm singing this to and about myself today.

Artist: Marshall Crenshaw
Year: 1982
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

Girl For All Seasons

Grease 2 now has its own tag. This is the fourth song from the movie that's been in my head since starting the blog in 2009. Shockingly, I still haven't woken up with a song from Grease, the original, in almost four years of blogging. I will say that Beauty School Dropout floats through my head with some regularity, but I haven't woken with it, and thus, it's been disqualified from the blog so far.

Artist: The Pink Ladies
Year: 1982
Rating: Luke Hot

Sister Christian

What's your price for flight?

Artist: Night Ranger
Year: 1984
Rating: Luke Hot

Workin' for a Livin'

My Huey Lewis oeuvre keeps growing. Those guys are catchy motherfuckers. I love the keyboard in this song. It's one of the tracks that makes it sonically obvious that members of the News once backed Elvis Costello. Yes, really.

Artist: Huey Lewis and the News
Year: 1982
Rating: Luke Hot

Fame, Redux

Last in my head on March 23, 2010. This time, I can't say that confidence is pouring from my pores in synch with this exuberant anthem. The song feels incongruous with my recent moods, indeed. Maybe my unconscious mind is trying to snap me out of these self-flagellating doldrums. Will it work?

Artist: Irene Cara
Year: 1980
Rating: Luke Hot