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!
