Songs You Can't Get out of your Head

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Stephen,

I love the remix.

It took out some of the dullness in the background mid frequencies of the original and allowed the pounding keyboard (which I am not fond of) to be just a bit less aggressive, a little bit less of a contrast to the world of the rest of the sounds. I can probably find other stuff if I go into it (I sense a slight more presence in Sheena's voice, for instance, maybe due to manipulating the frequencies, not increasing the volume), but just those two changes, which are subtle, not in your face, are great.

This, to me, enhanced the sense of wonder present in that song and arrangement.

Michael

[Peter]

I woke up with “Steam Boat Annie’ in my head, but weirdly I was remembering “Steamboat Willy” as the lyrics. Feeling a wee bit nostalgic? Listen to Heart doing “Steam Boat Annie,” “These Dreams,” “What about Love” or “All I want to do is make love to you.”

Feel like rocking? Listen to Heart doing, “Magic Man,” “Crazy on you,” or “Barracuda.”  

[Peter]

Heart’s “Dreamboat Annie.” I just listened to it again. What wonderful harmonies. 

[Marc]

4 hours ago, Peter said:

Heart’s “Dreamboat Annie.” I just listened to it again. What wonderful harmonies. 

Great song!!!!!

How about Fleetwood Mac, Sara, Dreams and Rhiannon 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here is a medley of songs you can't get out of your head performed by Anthony Newly and Sammy Davis Jr. 

These guys were huge friends and you can see it in their demeanor on stage--live by the way. No autotune of overdubbing here. And all of it rehearsed to perfection.

The songs are all written by Newly and his co-author, Leslie Bricusse.

 

I came across this because I played in a musical in high-school called "The Roar of the Greasepaint - The Smell of the Crowd" by Newly and Bricusse. I loved the experience. And the songs.

Now that I have revisited Newly, I have to get more. I'm going to do it, too. Thank God for YouTube (even though Google is still evil  ). 

 

The lyrics to Newly and Bricusse's songs are studies in squeezing the most out of each main word. He reuses a word over and over, sometimes adding new meaning to it where most songwriters would put a new line. Look at the first verse of "The Candyman":

Who can take a sunrise
Sprinkle it with dew?
Cover it with chocolate and a miracle or two?
The Candy Man.
The Candy Man can.
The Candy Man can 'cause he mixes it with love 
And makes the world taste good.

If you like poetic technique, economy of technique doesn't get better than that. When they do the call and response in most sung versions on the words, "the candy man," the impact doubles.

Or look at the first verse of "Feeling Good":

Birds flying high,
You know how I feel.
Sun in the sky,
You know how I feel.
Breeze drifting on by,
You know how I feel.
It's a new dawn,
It's a new day,
It's a new life,
For me.
And I'm feeling good.

Damn, that's good. Hell, that's great.  And believe it nor not, the poetic techniques themselves are more Biblical than standard lyric-writing. (I've been studying how to do this and where it comes from.)

 

The story of "The Roar of the Greasepaint - The Smell of the Crowd" can rival anything being performed on Broadway that I know of in creativity. And it is so relevant to today's world, it's painful that this has fallen out of the public's eye.

But there's a worm in the apple. A secondary character who's role is important is called The Negro and he doesn't address racism. In fact, he wins the game while no one is looking. That's a nice slap in the face to all the woke bullshit happening these days. However, because of today's woke crap, I think it is going to be near impossible to resurrect this musical to a mainstream production again. At least until the woke crap passes into the toilet of history and flushed.

The story is about two main characters, one called Cocky who is poor and one called Sir who is rich. There is a game they play (this is an abstract parable kind of story, not realism). Every time Sir plays it, he wins. Every time Cocky plays it, whether for love or business, they change the rules on him and he loses. 

Doesn't that sound like today's world? Banking and finance? Helloooo...  

Famous songs from this musical: "On a Wonderful Day Like Today," "The Joker," "Feeling Good," "Who Can I Turn To When Nobody Needs Me?" and others.

Dayaamm was this guy talented.

And his songs stick in your head. They breed earworms.

Michael