Elise – Page 35

Lizzo | 2 Be Loved (Am I Ready)

“(2019’s) Cuz I Love You (was) an album that drastically shifted Lizzo’s career,” (The Guardian). “It turned the lauded leftfield hip-hop artist into an inescapable part of the mainstream pop landscape, spawning one TikTok-boosted hit after another. The twin challenges of coping with sudden success and deciding what to do next evidently hung heavy. There’s a lot of stuff on Special (2022) about healing – for Lizzo this involves ‘twerking and making smoothies’ – while, by her account, she wrote 170 songs before whittling them down to these 12.

The results are impressively varied. The world hardly wants for 21st-century disco pastiches, but “About Damn Time” is a spectacularly good example – buoyed by a Nile Rodgers-esque guitar line, it sounds like the greatest Chic track Chic never recorded … What Lizzo has, and in abundance, is personality, a rarer commodity than it should be in pop. Indeed, she has so much of it that she’s capable of transforming flimsy material into something else. In anyone else’s hands, the synthy, new wave-ish pop of ‘2 Be Loved (Am I Ready)’ … might sound boilerplate. But more often than not, the music is built to match the woman behind it … “

After a start in C major, the track’s dense percussion suddenly shifts to the background for a vocal break at 2:02. The groove returns in full at 2:15 as a key change to D major kicks in.

Mike Batt | Better Than a Dream

“Yes … his has been something of an unconventional career. ‘The mystery man who jumps around from lily pad to lily pad without really explaining himself … My career has been like hitting a wall with a rubber hammer a thousand times, rather than just getting a bulldozer and knocking a way through in one go.’ (The Guardian). In the popular imagination, his name is linked with discovering Katie Melua, writing Art Garfunkel’s 1979 smash hit ‘Bright Eyes,'” and the Wombles, a British novelty pop group whose members dressed as fuzzy animal characters from the children’s TV show of the same name. “That barely does justice to his oeuvre, however: four decades of albums, film scores and projects … (that) have never been less than fascinating.”

Indeed, Batt’s career seems to have been nearly uncategorizable: “… One minute he’s knocking out a global soft-rock smash for Garfunkel, the next he’s taken off on a round-the-world yachting trip and is proffering a concept album about it … he protests that he’s not taken seriously as an orchestral conductor. ‘Most people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between my version of the Planets suite and Simon Rattle’s.'” Had the Wombles’ tunes “not been performed by himself and sundry cohorts in vast, furry costumes made by (Batt’s) mother, it’s hard not to feel they would be widely hailed as classic bubblegum pop – as indeed they were by the late Dee Dee Ramone, who unexpectedly outed himself as a fan of their keep-fit-themed 1974 album track ‘Exercise Is Good for You (Laziness Is Not)‘ in Legs McNeil’s oral history of US punk, Please Kill Me.”

1992’s “Better Than a Dream,” which starts as a piano ballad but evolves into a full orchestral accompaniment, begins in C major. But at 2:20, the dense texture of a brass fanfare shifts the tune to Eb major. Many thanks to our contributor Julianna A. for this submission!

Sabrina Carpenter | Please Please Please

“Sabrina Carpenter was recently released from Swift’s Eras tour juggernaut, having supported the superstar on her dates in Latin America, Australia and Singapore … (The Guardian). “(Her) career is already a decade long, though she only turns 25 next week … Carpenter signed a five-album record deal when she was 12 with the Disney-owned Hollywood Records. From 2014 to 2017, she also starred in the Disney Channel comedy Girl Meets World, while steadily releasing music … After opening for Ariana Grande and the Vamps on their 2017 tours, and a stint as the lead in Mean Girls on Broadway (cut short by the pandemic), Carpenter signed with Universal Music Group’s Island Records in 2021.”

“Please Please Please” was released in June 2024. Although the tune has a lightweight feel overall, the lyrics warn against the danger of ignoring romantic red flags (this live performance is a “clean” version; the original version amps up the red flag quotient yet further!) Built in A major overall, a single verse shifts to C major (1:30 – 1:49). The closing section, an oddly-placed bridge, starts at 2:25.

Little Anthony + The Imperials | Tears On My Pillow

“In the summer of 1958, Jerome Anthony Gourdine found himself simmering in a hot classroom at a brick high school in Brooklyn,” (thirteen.org). “Gourdine, better known as Little Anthony, had recently recorded his first single, ‘Tears On My Pillow,’ as a member of the singing group The Imperials. But that year he had skipped so many days of school, he was at risk of missing out on a diploma and was forced to complete the remaining credits over the summer.

‘That was a sentence, man,’ Little Anthony says now. He says he stuck through it, until one moment changed everything for him. ‘So one day, I heard these little girls in the back of the classroom snickering,’ he said. ‘And they had these little transistors in the air and I could hear music coming out of there and they kept pointing at me.’ When they handed him the radio, he heard himself singing ‘Tears On My Pillow.’ He promptly closed his books, walked out, and never looked back at his alma mater.” Gourdine later became a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Clocking in at only 2:20, the 1958 single reached the top ten in the US and Canada, going on to sell over a million copies. After a start in C major, the tune shifts up a whole step to D major at 1:50 as the brief bridge comes to an end.

Tanya Tucker | The Jamestown Ferry

“Long before teenagers like LeAnn Rimes and Taylor Swift were taking over the country charts, a 13-year-old Tanya Tucker was mixing it up with all the heavyweights,” (Holler Country). “Included on her debut album in 1972, “The Jamestown Ferry,” (a) funky little slice of countrypolitan, was everything the 13-year-old Tanya Tucker was becoming synonymous with in the early 70s.

With a lyric presumably way beyond her experience and a deep soulful vocal that belied her age, ‘The Jamestown Ferry’ tells the story of a woman wandering the honky tonks and bars and sadly reminiscing about how her lover used to treat her before he left her to catch a ferry.”

Tucker’s solo vocal verses alternate with a multi-part vocal arrangement for the choruses. 1:38 brings a half-step key change. Many thanks to regular contributor Rob P. for this submission!

Paul Revere + The Raiders | Kicks

“The songwriting team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil were two of the most successful in pop music in the early ’60s, having written such hits as ‘You’ve Lost That Lovin Feelin,’ ‘Uptown,’ and ‘On Broadway’ to name a few,” (AllMusic). “Likewise, Paul Revere and the Raiders were also at the pinnacle of their existence with a hit AM radio rocker and a featured spot on the TV show Where the Action Is.

In March of 1966, the Mann/Weil-penned anti-drug song ‘Kicks’ peaked at number four, the highest position to date on the Billboard charts for Paul Revere and the Raiders.” The US band’s clearly anti-drug single was not exactly in tune with the zeitgeist of its era: “For better or worse, mind expansion was in the air, and it was about to be embraced by an audience ready to turn in its Beatlemania wigs for a future paved by the creative revelations of Revolver and Sgt. Pepper. It would only be a matter of months before weirdo bands from places like experimental San Francisco would preach the exact opposite message delivered in ‘Kicks.’ … (It) is one of the handful of overtly anti-’60s pop songs recorded in its own time.”

A brief bridge (1:43 – 1:59) shifts the tonality from F minor to the parallel major key of F major. That would normally qualify for quite an early bridge, but in this case, the entire the track is only 2:32!

Serendipity Singers | Don’t Let the Rain Come Down (Crooked Little Man)

“The folk boom of the early 1960s spawned numerous purveyors of well-scrubbed folk pop, and one of the most popular ensembles to emerge was The Serendipity Singers, founded at the University of Colorado … (they) signed with Philips Records in 1964 and released their debut single, ‘Don’t Let the Rain Come Down (Crooked Little Man),’ which reached #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was nominated at the 7th Grammy Awards in 1965 for Best Performance by a Chorus,” (Colorado Music Hall of Fame).

“… The group had numerous appearances on popular TV shows like The Ed Sullivan Show, The Dean Martin Show, The Tonight Show, Shindig! and Hullabaloo. One of the most notable performances was at the White House in front of President Lyndon B. Johnson during the 1964 Democratic National Convention … The Serendipity Singers came onto the nationwide music scene right before the longstanding reign of The Beatles and the British Invasion exploded onto U.S. soil.” The college newspaper The Missouri Miner wrote in a 1969 review: ‘They’re not hippies and they don’t wear flowers, but the sound of The Serendipity Singers is as contemporary as Pop Art … ‘”

The whimsical track “Don’t Let the Rain Come Down (Crooked Little Man)” shifts up a whole-step at the 2:22 mark. Many thanks to our regular contributor Rob P. for sending in this tune!

At the Club Savoy (from “Panama Hattie”)

“Panama Hattie is a 1940 American musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter and book by Herbert Fields and B. G. DeSylva. The musical is about a nightclub owner, Hattie Maloney, who lives in the Panama Canal Zone and ends up dealing with both romantic and military intrigue. The title is a play on words, referring to the popular Panama hat,” (SondheimGuide.com).

The musical was adapted for a 1942 film of the same name. With World War II underway and recently augmented by the addition of US troops, Hollywood was honing the craft of releasing films which were often short on budgeting, plot, or both. It seems that Panama Hattie was lacking only in the latter of the two factors. The film’s script “was quite witty, full of sight gags, yes, but tasteful sight gags, the non-Porter songs were not crap; Ann Sothern is a competent vocalist (nothing compared to Merman, who originated the part, but really, who is anything compared to Merman?), and Lena Horne’s in it,” (IMDB). “… But I suggest watching this movie for more than just Lena Horne … Virginia O’Brian is rather fun to watch with her deadpan singing … the plot is slim to none, but the movie really wasn’t about plot, it was about fun and peddling war bonds.”

The tune runs in A major overall, with a few temporary diversions. But the most noticeable shift, up a half-step to Bb, hits at 2:13 in advance of the number’s final wind-up.

Thanks as always to regular contributor Jamie A. for this submission!

Errol Garner | Misty

“In 1954, the Erroll Garner Trio introduced the instrumental ‘Misty.’ A year later Johnny Burke penned the lyrics, creating the song we know today,” (JazzStandards.com). “‘Misty’ remained relatively unknown until Johnny Mathis popularized the vocal version with his million-selling recording in 1959. Although it was never a number one hit, ‘Misty’ has been performed by hundreds of instrumentalists and vocalists … the melody soars over a range of nearly two octaves with many pitches falling on color tones or chord extensions (mainly the major seventh, the ninth and the eleventh).”

Built with a classic AABA form, the tune’s B section ” … begins with a fairly orthodox harmonic progression- v -I7 -iv, in which the I7 functions as a V7 of the new subdominant key (in the original key, Eb modulating to Ab). But then the IV chord (Ab) is followed by a minor 7th chord a half step higher. Aural experience tells our ears to expect this Am7, which is followed by a D7, to be a ii7 -V7 sequence to G major or G minor. Instead, Garner surprises us once again by a deceptive resolution to Cm, the vi of the original tonic of Eb. From there, it’s an easy modulation back to the tonic (but what a fascinating detour!)”

In this 1961 live performance on TV’s Ed Sullivan Show, Garner presents the tune in a single chorus, which ranges from a staid left-hand stride style to a gently shimmering right hand technique. There are no subsequent choruses to host a formal solo, but Garner’s interpretation of the melody is so whimsically ornamented that the single chorus gets the job done all on its own. The legendary B section’s first few notes begin at 0:47, with the section starting in earnest at 0:50. The closing A section begins at 1:14.

For a more straightforward treatment of the melody, it would be difficult to improve on Johnny Mathis’ 1959 rendition:

Humble Pie | Sweet Peace and Time

“There was a lot riding on this album (Smokin‘, 1972). After the general economical failure of (UK band Humble Pie’s) first two albums released in the States, Humble Pie and Rock On, their live album, Rockin’ the Filmore shot them up to top-billing across the country and into a major name,” (TheUncool). “So, when Smokin’ hit the racks it would provide exposure of the studio side to a band that became famous on their live side. The reception would be significant …

Actually there is nothing extremely original about the band. They play a brand of rock ‘n roll that is definitely not unique to them. So…just what is it about Humble Pie, or for that matter Smokin’, that in actuality puts them in a class above so many others? … Humble Pie is a confident band. They don’t bashfully kick around a number of styles and techniques … Humble Pie is a band that works with the bare essentials of rock ‘n roll. Performance Rockin’ the Fillmore proved them as a great live band. Smokin’ proves them as a great band. Anywhere.” (Courtesy of the Door [aka San Diego Door] – Cameron Crowe)

After beginning in A minor, “Sweet Peace and Time” shifts up to B minor at 0:45, then hangs out in E minor for an instrumental section from 1:09 – 1:39. At 1:39, the same A minor pattern from the intro and first verse is once again in effect. The pattern continues from there.