pop – Page 29

Eydie Gormé & Los Panchos | La última noche

“La última noche,” written by Bobby Collazo, was featured on the 1964 album Amore by American singer Eydie Gorme and the trio Los Panchos. Gorme, who was born in New York, grew up speaking Spanish, and “Blame It On The Bossa Nova” is one of the songs that helped establish her as a mainstream star. Los Panchos, generally regarded as one of the most influential Latin American music groups of all time, sold millions of records and also appeared in more than 50 films.

The following is from an interview Gormé did with The Arizona Republic about the album:

“I knew a lot of them,” Gormé says. “I didn’t even realize I knew them until we worked on them, and they were songs I knew from my house growing up.” She has other memories of making the disc; specifically, of Los Panchos. “They were drinking a lot of wine on those sessions,” she says with a laugh. “They were lovely people. Drunk, but lovely.” Whatever the reason, the artists had a once-in-a-lifetime chemistry.

The track alternates between F minor and F major throughout.

The Sandpipers | Come Saturday Morning

“The Sandpipers were a male vocal trio that recorded a handful of easy listening pop hits in the mid-’60s,” (AllMusic). “The group was distinguished by its light, breezy harmonies, which floated over delicate, breezy string arrangements, as well as the occasional appearance of a wordless female backing vocalist who drifted in and out of the music. Though they didn’t manage to have a long, sustained career, the group did have one Top Ten hit with ‘Guantanamera’ in 1966.

In 1970, they contributed songs to the film The Sterile Cuckoo (“Come Saturday Morning”) and Russ Meyer’s Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. Though the Sandpipers continued to record into the ’70s, their audience diminished with each successive year. After spending five years without any chart success, the group disbanded in the mid-’70s.”

Released in September 1969, “Come Saturday Morning” reached #83 on the Pop chart and #9 on the Easy Listening chart. The tune was subsequently covered by Liza Minnelli, Chet Baker, Johnny Mathis, Tony Bennett, and Patti Page, among other artists. Starting in D major, the lilting 6/8 track shifts to F major at 1:51, but by 2:19 the tune has returned to its original key.

Many thanks to MotD regular contributor Rob P. for this submission!

Ann Hampton Callaway & Melissa Manchester | New Eyes

“As a new year begins, I am excited to release a song called “New Eyes”, which I joyfully wrote and recorded with my friend, the legendary Melissa Manchester,” said Ann Hampton Callaway. “We created a moment when two people get a new lease on life by letting go of the past and looking at each other with ‘ new eyes.'”

The track is featured on Callaway’s new album Finding Beauty, her first record of all original material. The verses are set in Bb, and the choruses start up a step in C before quickly modulating again to Db.

Lou Reed | Perfect Day

“Lou Reed’s low-key, optimistic, and earnest ballad about spending a casual, but perfect day with his partner is arguably his most enduring,” (GoldRadioUK). “Given the nature of rock ‘n’ roll artists at the time, and his previous outlandish experimentalism with The Velvet Underground, ‘Perfect Day’ was a bit of an anomaly for Reed. With the media, Reed was notoriously obnoxious, obtuse, and twisted journalists in circles as to not reveal the true meaning behind his words.

Featuring on his David Bowie-produced 1972 album Transformer … Reed wrote the lyrics to ‘Perfect Day,’ the slow, piano-based balled which details a typically amorous day out with his partner … The song’s lyrics flit between seemingly simple, conventional devotion to his partner in ‘Oh, it’s such a perfect day, I’m glad I spent it with you,’ to Reed’s true feelings about himself: ‘You made me forget myself. I thought I was someone else, someone good.'”

After a verse in Bb minor, the chorus brings a shift to Bb major between 0:51 and 1:18; the pattern continues from there. The placement of this humble, earnest ballad as a double-A-side single with “Walk on the Wild Side,” the uptempo oddball love letter to the NYC world surrounding Andy Warhol’s Factory, likely caused more than a few cases of whiplash among listeners.

USA for Africa | We Are The World

“We Are The World” was written by Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson as a benefit for African famine relief. Richie and Jackson, along with producer Quincy Jones, assembled a supergroup of singers, including Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, Paul Simon, Billy Joel, Bob Dylan, Cyndi Lauper and many others, to record the track in January 1985. It quickly became the fastest selling pop single in US History, and raised over $80 million. Last month, Netflix released The Greatest Night In Pop, a documentary chronicling how the recording session came together and including footage from the studio.

The tune begins in E and modulates to F at 4:03.

Laura Mvula | I’m Still Waiting

“The word ‘comeback’ is overused, but in Laura Mvula‘s case, it really does hold true,” (NME). “Though her impressive second album, 2016’s The Dreaming Room, earned her MOBO (the UK’s Musician of Black Origin award) and Mercury Prize nominations plus an Ivor Novello award, she was unceremoniously dropped by RCA Records six months after it came out. The supremely talented Birmingham-born musician later revealed that she received the bad news in a forwarded seven-line email.

Having dusted herself off – writing the music for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2017 production of Antony & Cleopatra must have helped – Mvula is back on a new label, Atlantic, with an overhauled sound. Where her 2013 debut Sing to the Moon largely blended soul with orchestral pop and The Dreaming Room introduced a touch of funk and disco to the mix, Mvula has called Pink Noise (2021) an album ‘made with warm sunset tones of the ’80s’. She isn’t overselling it.”

“I’m Still Waiting,” was first a #1 UK hit released by Diana Ross on her 1971 album Everything is Everything. Mvula’s cover starts in C major; the second half of the first verse features an unprepared modulation at 0:18, settling into Eb major at for the duration. With an accompaniment full of sighing pauses and comprised only of keyboards and feathery layers of backing vocals, the focus falls all that more squarely on the storytelling of Mvula’s poised lead vocal.

Ross’ original, in Eb major, features no key changes and a gentle but more consistent groove throughout.

The Lemon Twigs | They Don’t Know How to Fall In Place

“Child actors turned gifted multi-instrumentalists, Long Island brothers Brian and Michael D’Addario formed The Lemon Twigs in their mid-teens,” (LouderSound). “Flamboyantly dressed purveyors of Baroque pop, power-pop and glam, they swap duties across guitars, drums, lead vocals, and more … Todd Rundgren, Justin Hawkins (The Darkness) and My Chemical Romance’s Gerard Way are among their fans.”

“Musical pastiche can be dangerous,” (The Guardian). “When you go beyond having influences to embodying those influences, artists can easily slip into self-parody. You need spectacularly good songs to pull it off … The songwriting never dips below classic … in an age of copyright lawsuits, there are still so many new and perfect songs waiting to be written. In love with the past but making the present so bright, the Lemon Twigs are, in the end, timeless.”

“They Don’t Know How to Fall In Place,” from the duo’s fifth album A Dream is All We Know (2024), settles into F major for its first verse. At 0:35, we’re led through a rapid cascade which finally gravitates to the terra firma of B major. 1:03 brings an emphatic C7 chord, dropping us back into the next verse in F major. The bridge brings some more harmonic shifts before returning us to the main form.

Sagittarius | My World Fell Down

Sagittarius was the “sunshine pop” pet project of songwriter and producer Gary Usher. He was a co-writer of some well-known Beach Boys songs, such as “In My Room” and “409.” He produced the English duo Chad & Jeremy, and later, the group Peanut Butter Conspiracy. Sagittarius released just two albums, Present Tense and The Blue Marble. Sagittarius wasn’t a band as such; its members were studio pros along for the ride, among them Beach Boy Bruce Johnston, his Bruce and Terry partner Terry Melcher, and Glen Campbell. Producer Curt Boettcher was involved with much of the material, although not on this track.

AllMusic describes the song “My World Fell Down” as “totally enthralling”. The lead vocal is by a well-disguised Glen Campbell. The orchestration owes much to the Beach Boys recordings of the Pet Sounds era — the bouncy chorus is awfully close to “Good Vibrations,” and the drum fills could have been copped from “God Only Knows” (in fact, Hal Blaine in both cases!). The song, written by John Carter and Geoff Stephens, was first recorded by the English band The Ivy League. Sagittarius’ single version, released in 1967, reached #70 on the Billboard chart.

After an intro in G# major, the verse shifts to G# minor, then to F# major at 0:25 for the chorus. More shifts continue throughout. A short passage of musique concrète (or psychedelia, if you will) begins at 1:48. Unusually, that snippet appears on the single edit only; it was replaced in the LP edit by an instrumental passage. The next section feels like a direct appropriation from “Good Vibrations”: a subdued vocal passage, to contrast with the ebullient chorus that follows. A keyboard coda takes us full circle to where we began in G# major.

Melissa Manchester + Kenny Loggins | Whenever I Call You Friend

“’Whenever I Call You Friend’ is a song written by Kenny Loggins and Melissa Manchester, which Loggins recorded as a duet with Stevie Nicks for his 1978 album Nightwatch,” (MelissaManchester.com). “‘Kenny and I kept meeting each other at award shows, and he asked if I wanted to write with him, and we met up and we knocked it out. It was great. As a writer, he knows what he wants. I’d rather be in a room with someone like that than not.’

When first released, (co-lead vocalist and Fleetwood Mac frontwoman) Stevie Nicks was not credited on the original 45 single, so this was officially considered Loggins’ first solo Top 40 hit.” The tune reached #5 on the Billboard Hot 100.

A brief a cappella intro, completely different from that of the original 1978 version, unexpectedly jumps up two whole steps at 0:16 before the start of the first verse. The tune’s winding path through many modulations is still in place; the key eventually shifts a full perfect fourth overall from the 0:16 mark to the end. A new key change up a half step also makes a prominent appearance at the 3:20 mark. Manchester seems to have the time of her life performing with her co-writer!

Many thanks to Todd B. for bringing this gorgeous cover to our attention — his first contribution to MotD!

Susan Boyle | I Dreamed a Dream

Scottish singer Susan Boyle rose to fame as a contestant on the third season of the reality singing competition Britain’s Got Talent singing “I Dreamed a Dream” from the blockbuster musical Les Miserables. Her debut album of the same name, released in 2009, quickly became the UK’s best-selling album of all time, and with over 10 million copies sold is now one of the best-selling records of the 21st century. Boyle has gone on to release seven additional albums.

The tune begins in Eb and dramatically modulates up a whole step to F at 1:44.