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Mystery Tune #29: Mystery Tune 29

John

Sounds a bit like “Heart and Soul” but I know that’s not it. Hmm.

Got It! "Beyond The Sea" by Bobby Darin

I kept hearing a big-bandy, rat-packy voice in my head, driving my crazy...phew.........

Michael got it. Congrats! Beyond the Sea:

John

A little different clue this time. This is the instrumental ending to the song. Very familiar though. Mystery Tune #30: Mystery bTune #30

John

Answer posted and erased to give others a chance, sent John a PM with my answer as I am 99% positive it is correct, and feeling shamefully cocky enough to not listen to the hit recording on youtube to verify my "guess."

If my answer was correct, a great clue would be "this song probably holds the record for most consecutive semitones in the main melody of a hit song."

Of course, if I'm wrong I could be completely throwing you off course, haha...

Not ringing any semitones with me. I don’t think I’d ever get this one, nice playing John..

Is it a movie soundtrack number? Sounds like a Bogart/Becall movie theme song. Its not Casablanca's Play it again Sam is it?

eddie

If my (99% certain) guess that I PM'd John hours ago is correct, it IS a movie soundtrack number and also the name of the movie. Just not Casablanca.

Obscure, surreal clue: Mr. T might have the song on his playlist.

Well Eddie's taken a guess and Craig is stumped and I'm not sure if anyone else is playing, so I'll go ahead and solve it!

"Town Without Pity" by Gene Pitney

Mr. T would "pity the fool" who didn't have "Town Without Pity" on their playlist. Music by film composer Dmitri Tiomkin. I bet he had to fight to keep all those half steps in the main vocal melody--it's just not something you hear every day but is part of what makes "Town Without Pity" such a classic.

Congrats Michael! “Town Without Pity” is correct”! Not only one of my favorite songs, but also one of my favorite singers. Gene Pitney has one of those signature voices. It’s part of what makes the song. In fact, I don’t remember any other artist ever doing a cover of it.

Town Without Pity

You put the mystery in mystery tune on that one. Never heard this song before. Where have I been? Good job!!

In the days of folk rock, protest songs, the British invasion etc, Pitney cut through it all with great songs and a superb distinctive voice....big fan of his back then

I'm not familiar with Pitney beyond "Town Without Pity" but will find a collection of his stuff and check it out.

I just have always loved this particular song. Both the composition and the arrangement/production are kind of unique. There's a kind of noirish, sleazy elegance at work, for me, the "sleaze" and "elegance" having struck a perfect balance. "Gritty elegance" may be more what I mean, there...

You may like Mecca" and "Only Love Can Break a Heart" Michael.

Thanks, John. I think I know the second song, but will make sure both are in the collection I listen to.

Here's a new mystery song, #31, I think:

https://soundcloud.com/michael-zane...ium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

This is a piano arrangement of the first 4 bars of the song's INTRO....

This should be easy....

Yeah, that’s a good one Mike!

Craig, if you know the answer but want to give others time to play, PM your answer to me, and I'll make sure you get credit for being first. I have a feeling everyone that listens will get it. Hard to gauge what's too easy and what's too hard, sometimes...

Yeppers, one of my all time favs and did a cover a few years back--I'll hold off to see if some youngsters might know it!

eddie

Jezz, now I feel like a dope that I don't know this one.

John

We have a couple winners............................

"God Only Knows" by The Beach Boys

Eddie is the first place winner, having guessed it first. Craig is the second place winner having guessed it second.

Congrats, guys!

Technically speaking. this is a song that BARELY made a dent in the USA top 40, peaking at number 39. But it's gained a legacy over the years and is on most "best of all time" lists.



Musically rather unique. Ambiguous tonal center. It's the concurrence of the tonic chord finally hitting on "knows" that makes the music so satisfying. The one song that Brian Wilson wrote that made McCartney and Bacharach and Webb jealous. The song still makes me listen; still hear more in it every time. Still gives goose bumps.
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Here's a FANTASTIC article about the song:

The Case for “God Only Knows” as the Best Pop Song Ever Written
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Hear me out.

Every list that has ever existed as the “100 Greatest Pop or Rock this-or-that” of all time runs on the fuel of subjectivity and personal opinion. I get that. Rolling Stone released a list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2011 and there are a dozen other similar lists out there, and by their very nature, they are subjective. If there were accurate quantitative means by which to rank music, the lists would all be identical.

However — all these lists get the top song wrong. Subjective or not.

The Rolling Stone list has God Only Knows at #25, behind such pablum as “Hound Dog” and “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” It’s number 21 here, a list that seems almost like a spoof, (“When Doves Cry”? Really?) and 20 here. You get the point. Most greatest-of lists log the song in somewhere in the top 30.

I disagree. “God Only Knows” is a perfect song. It is rich in creative virtuosity, lyrical achievement, and its ground-breaking arrangement. It works on broad-brush levels and at a macro level for the nuance enthusiast. I will lay out my arguments herein.

To begin with, we look at the key signature. The song is in the key of “E.” However, it almost never resolves to the root tonic, except for at the conclusion of the titular line at the end of the first and second chorus. Why is that a big deal?

It is a big deal because it immediately informs the listener that the melodic roadmap will be a very untraveled path — one of creative experimentation and mastery and not just your everyday 12-bar blues construction. “Hound Dog” by contrast, starts on the tonic and spends most of its time there. Yawn.

The entire verse’s chord structure is a virtual middle-finger to the expectation of cadence, tonality, and inversions. Inverted chords with the 5th in the base abound, the tension between what is being played and the actual key signature remains unrequited, yet there is a destination if the listener will wait.

It is at the close of the chorus that we finally end up with an E major, and the listener can breathe before the next twist arrives.

That twist comes in the form of the bass line into the second verse. When Carl Wilson sings “God only knows what I’d be without you” the chord changes are A — E/G# — F#m7 — E. Resolution.

At this point, the piano and bass need to climb back up to A, and Brian makes an interesting musical choice here — a G-natural in the bass rather than a G#.

The entire verse’s chord structure is a virtual middle-finger to the expectation of cadence, tonality, and inversions.

This stands out as a vivid musical choice. It’s simple yet bold — any other composer would have climbed up through G# because that’s the default, the easy choice. But Wilson drops it to a natural to set up for the D/A to start verse two.

D/A is already outside the key signature, so in effect, you have a modulation contained neatly within that single G-natural. Brilliant.

Lyrically, and melodically, the song is haunting. The lead vocal, sung by Brian’s younger brother Carl, follows the melody deftly along an atypical tonal scale, which presents as both impossible yet straightforward to sing. As the chords shift from an E/B to a C-diminished and Carl sings “You never need to doubt it…” the melody is at once vocally gymnastic yet simple, a feat that could only be achieved by his gentle approach and tenor range.

The story of full-surrender love is chock full of cliffhangers, to-wit:

“I may not always love you,” the first line of the song, seems simple enough until you realize the writer has set up an impossible-to-knock-down set of pins in the following line, “ But long as there are stars above you.”

Ah yes — I’ll only love you as long as there are stars, so, forever.

Verse two takes it to another level still:

“If you should ever leave me
Though life would still go on, believe me
The world could show nothing to me
So what good would livin’ do me”

Yes — life would go on, but what would be the point?

Finally, the orchestration. The album “Pet Sounds,” from which this song came, was quite literally Brian Wilson’s answer to Rubber Soul. The Beatles’ album which had been released in 1965 contained a multitude of cutting-edge arrangements, vocal harmonies (“Drive My Car”) and instrumentation (sitar on “Norwegian Wood” to name a few).

As a result, Wilson wanted to take it up a notch. The result was “Pet Sounds,” and the tour-de-force of that album was “God Only Knows.” Instrumentally, Wilson crafted a blend of standard rhythm section instruments along with harpsichord, sleigh bells, strings, french horn, orange-juice cups, taped strings on a thumb-tacked piano, all of which provided the substrate to Wilson’s vocal line.

The instrumentation feels far away. Sparse in many places but building to a vocally-layered, all-in round as the song fades out. The thin and echoey passages punctuate the desperation of the lyrics. There is nothing in-your-face about the music bed, it just is — and is remarkable.

The icing on the musical cake are the various licks and riffs that cause the listener to perk up and say, “Damn — that was sweet” and are too numerous to mention. Noteworthy, however, are Hal Blaine’s snare triplets every other measure on the fade out, and Bill Green and Jim Horn’s heavily reverbed flute lines in the third verse.

Think those are just filler? Hell no. Those licks are the sweetener that adds to the cocktail to cause it to rise to a level of perfection.

The instrumentation was Brian at his zenith, extracting from each musician the timbre and phrasing for every note, a 22-year-old mad-scientist maestro taking the notes from his head to 2-inch tape.

There is a master’s thesis worth of commentary to support my contention but alas, not enough room or time to lay them all out. I’ve not even talked about the orchestral B-section, the temporary time spent in the four-chord key coming out of it, the masterful return to the key signature after that, and so much more.

It can’t be outdone. Your lists are meaningless.

Oh yeah, stumped by my own method of using intros/ endings. And I know this one well. Darn, darn, DARN! Okay, I'm over it...

John

Thanks Mike! Tony Asher co-wrote “God Only Knows” and a few others on the 1966 album Pet Sounds. Asher said later, “I wasn't surprised [Brian Wilson didn’t ask him to write with him anymore ] Remember, Pet Sounds was considered a flop. Even before the songs were recorded, I knew that the rest of the band felt that Brian's decision to write with me was a bad decision." It was the opening theme to “Big Love” TV series is where I’ve heard it the most.

But that gnawing sensation of "I KNOW THIS SONG, I KNOW it--why can't I think of it?!?" is the best. When it happens to me, It's like I can feel my brain trying to create new neural pathways, lol.


Good stuff! Forgot about Asher's involvement. Never seen "Big Love." I imagine the song was the best part of the show, haha...

It sure set the scene.

Bill paxton and HBO? I spoke too soon...apologies. I miss Paxton. He was a good actor. I might have to check it out. Thanks for posting.

As much as I love Brian Wilson's version of "God Only Knows" in which I also feel musically is a masterpiece and a top five pop melody of all time IMO, I also really like Neil Diamond's "cover" which is a slower tempo version. I attempted to cover this version a couple year's back. Though this version doesn't have quite the "sophistication" with diverse arrangement, I love how the orchestra has such a powerful supporting bed for one of pop's greatest vocalists Neil Diamond. As Mike was alluding to earlier in a much deeper music understanding that I have, I think it was Colin Ward, (not sure) that said this song could be considered having "two keys,?.......... as it's not exactly a standard key change.



eddie.

Neil Diamond usually did right by his covers. Never "faithful" but kind of "Diamond-ized" versions with great string arrangements.

His version of Roger Miller's "Husbands and Wives" was my mom's favorite song, and as her caregiver in her later years, I played it for her every day up 'til her death at the age of 95.

His "God Only Knows" is very beautiful indeed.

These two girls look like they're having fun with "Name That Song Challenge": Name That Tune Challenge

Who is going to do #32?

John

Here’s one. Mystery Tune #32.

Dang it Craig! I know that melody...

John

I THINK I KNOW THIS SONG....BUT I'LL LET A YOUNGSTER TRY

I guess at 65, I'm the 'youngster', haha...

PM'd Craig, another 99% sure...

If I'm correct, here's a fun hint:

Most modern day listeners of this mystery tune might do an 'aural double take' and wonder, when hearing its introduction, "is that 'Orinoco Flow' by Enya?" --especially if ones memory of both songs is a little vague.

Mike has it. The intro is probably more familiar than the first sung notes.

I would play... but, I don't want to startle any of you "old fogies" with my guitar

I beg your pardon? I think I speak for everyone here in taking offense at "old fogey" --at worst, we are "young fogeys" --but I like to think of myself, personally, as an "old whippersnapper" thankyouverymuch.

But seriously, I imagine many of these "mystery songs" might be a little before your time? But I would love for you to prove me wrong. Take a listen and guess at Craig's Mystery Tune #32

And I personally think it would be a wonderful "change-of-pace" and hellafun to have you "host-a-round", giving a guitar/melody clue.

"Fogies, Fogeys..." Lol

Yeah', I don't have the "foggiest" clue what any of you are doing...

I'll just keep my 80's metal to myself

Carry on

I'll delay my guess as I "think" I recognized it quickly. If I'm right, this singer of this song introduced the Osmond Brothers on his show......

edwardo

Andy Williams ?

Well the song has the same melody as:

"Can't get used to losing you."

Yep John. Andy Williams sang this song. B side was ‘Days of Wine And Roses.’

Eddie got it! “Can’t Get Used To Losing you” written by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman. They also wrote “This Magic Moment,” A Teenager in Love,” “Save the Last Dance for Me,” “Suspicion,” “Viva Las Vegas,” and several others. Congrats!

Craig, what about me? I guessed it four hours ago, remember I PM'd you?

Was just about to make that correction. Sorry about that! Mike, VNORTH2, and Eddie: Congrats!

Everyone except John.

Poor John.

He's apparently lost his Mojo.

I think Andy Williams got his start with his brothers as a "barber shop quartet in the 50's. I remember seeing the Osmonds introduced on his show early-mid-60's. Give us a stage tune John!

Looking forward to it!

Can't Get Use to Losing You! Ahh, peace at last. Did I win - ha, ha?

John