Mystery Ostinato (I think?)

Hello, friends!

A longer and longer interval of time goes by between blog posts here, but, rest assured, I still get songs stuck in my head (and still love getting them stuck in yours!)

This classical or operatic melody came to me this morning. I still know as little about music theory as ever, but a cursory search online tells me this repeating sequence of four notes that change only slightly might be called an ostinato. It's super famous; I'm sure you know it, too. No idea what piece of popculture I know it from, though odds are Looney Tunes, as usual.

I used this virtual piano tool to tenuously suss out the notes, starting with a mid-range G, which was close to the tone I had in my head.

Please help me identify this tune, and where you know it from!

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

 

Name This Tune! (Solved!)

 

 

My dear readers,

It's been such a long time since I posted about the songs knocking around in my head - four years, in fact, since my last update! But I had this mystery tune on the brain yesterday, and thought I'd appeal to you to help me identify it! No idea what it is, how old it is, why it's in my head, anything. Let me know in the comments if you have a guess!

This is the super neat tool I used to make the video:
Online Sequencer

The Mystery Songs tag is one of my favorites, check 'em all out!
Mystery Songs

May all your earworms be merry, my friends!

Status: solved!

I'm Free (Heaven Helps the Man), Redux x2

Last blogged: June 5, 2013.

Jeezus, this song is in my head A LOT. A lot, lot, for a song I'm pretty meh about. Nevertheless.

Artist: Kenny Loggins
Year: 1984
Rating: lukewarm-cold

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

Rockin' Robin

I slept soundly last night and woke around 5:00 am to use the loo. This song emerged distinct in my mental landscape. No idea why.

Artist: Bobby Day
Year: 1958
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!

Downtown Train - Original Cover!

Tom Waits's "Downtown Train" has been in my head for a few days, so I decided to figure it out on guitar. Then I sang it at karaoke last night, and it wasn't too shabby. I'm using something closer to the key Rod Stewart sang it in, 'cause Tom's range is a might too low, as you can imagine. Hope you enjoy it!



Artist: Sooze
Written by: Tom Waits
Notable covers: Rod Stewart (1989); Everything But the Girl (1992)
Year: 2014; original 1985
Rating: Hot!

Join Together

Inspired to post again, 'cause this odd one hit me out of nowhere today. It's not one of my most tapped Who songs, but it's got a good groove. It's also 42 years old, as of this summer. Much like me.

Artist: The Who
Year: 1972
Rating: Warm

Faves *New Edit, 5/28/15

Curious about which blog posts I groove on the most? Check out these geeky-sweet gems!


2/11/09:
Sometimes When We Touch

2/1/10:
Just Can't Get Enough

2/28/10:
Six Degrees of Fish Heads

3/30/10:
Spooky Instrumental

9/27/10:
Jump

1/18/11:
The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze

3/5/11:
New Mystery Song!

3/9/11:
Wonderful Tonight/Stuck On You Mash Up

8/1/12:
Dreams of Merlin

8/4/12:
Last Time in Love

1/20/13:
Tom Sawyer

Billy Boy

I haven't been focused on the song blog in quite some time, but this tune arrived so out of the blue, I had to post it. I'm sure I haven't heard any version of it in more than 30 years. The internets date its origins in the 18th Century, but it looks like the most popular versions weren't published in England til about WWI era and not in the States til 1930.

Thanks to YouTube user LDsongscreen for posting this sweet rendition of the song.

Artist: Unknown
Year: c. 1790s; 1910s; 1930s
Rating: Warm