Technique

What you know and what you don’t know

Years ago I had an opportunity to fill in at a Big-Band radio station in San Francisco. I was excited about being on a high-powered radio station in the big city. The problem was that I really did not know the music. At one point I played something by the Glen Miller Orchestra. Before the song ended I practised how to say the name of Miller’s vocalist/saxophone player, Tex Beneke. I said to myself several times, BEN-eck-key, BEN-eck-key, BEN-eck-key. I turned the microphone on and said Ben-ECK-key. A listener called up. “You’re a young kid, ain’t ya.”

A few years later I was listening to an oldies station in Seattle. The song “Dirty Water” played. The announcer came on and said it was by the STAND-dills. I was incredulous. How could anybody working at a large market station not know the that the song was by the Stand-DELLS? Then I remembered that Sunday evening in San Francisco thirteen years before.

Sometimes when you are young and just starting out, you are not going to be as smooth as you would like. You need to be easy on yourself — and just as easy on others.

I love music trivia quizzes, especially about music from the ’60’s. However, many times it is clear that the people who make some of those quizzes do not really know what they are talking about. I would think, though, that someone who takes the time to make such a quiz and post it on line would research to make sure their answers are correct. There are two quiz questions from over the years that really got my hackles up.

One question went something like this:

In what City does Bobby Bare want to sleep tonight?

A. Detroit City

B. Abilene

C. (A third city)

D. (Some other city)

I could eliminate two of the choices right away. Of the other two, I knew that George Hamilton IV had a version of Abilene and was not aware that Bobby Bare had a version.

That left Detroit City, but anyone who had ever heard the song knew that Bobby Bare wanted to be almost anywhere but Detroit City. Any song that starts out with “I wanna go home. I wanna go home. Lord how I wanna go home” tells you the person singing the song is someone the Chamber of Commerce wants to keep out of sight.

So unless the question really meant “Where is Bobby Bare stuck but is hoping he does not have insomnia tonight?” then Detroit City was not a good answer to the question. I chose Abilene hoping that Bobby Bare did have a version that I was not aware of.

I was wrong. I guess the person who wrote the quiz had never really heard the song, or it had been so long that he forgot what it was about.

Another question that bothered me was this one:

Which of these is the official (emphasis mine) name of a Beatles album?

A. Red Album

B. Blue Album

C. Green Album

D. White Album

E. None of the above.

In 1968, the Beatles released a two record album. It had an all-white cover on the outside (except for maybe some small black print here and there) with the name of the album embossed on the front cover. While the album is commonly referred to as The White Album, the name embossed on the front simply said The Beatles. I choose E, None of the above.

They said I was wrong and that the answer was D. They made an incorrect assumption.

I am sure I will make some mistakes from time to time here. I try and verify what I write, but sometimes I go by memory if I am unable to verify. Feel free to let me know if I get something wrong.

What are they saying?

Lyrics can be a troublesome thing.

Sometimes, you just cannot understand the words at all. A classic example of this is the Kingsmen classic, Louie, Louie. First of all, Jack Ely was far from the microphone with his neck stretched which added a roughness to his voice making it hard to understand what are pretty innocuous lyrics that led the FBI into a two-year investigation of trying to figure them out. Second, the lyrics to the song are in something of a pidgin English making it hard for a listener to “logically” follow the words.

Other times, the words may be slurred to the extent that a listener may hear something other than what is sung. Jimi Henrix’ “‘Scuse me while I kiss this guy” falls in to that category.

There are times that you do hear, phonetically, what is being sung, but the music phrasing makes it hard to understand what the lyrics mean, such as in Dorothy Moore’s fantastic 1976 hit Misty Blue. To move some words around to make the point, I could never figure out if Ms. Moore meant “Good baby, listen to me” or “Baby, listen to me good.” An extremely minor point in a great record, but it always tripped something in my mind whenever I heard it .

Then there are times when there are words that sound the same but the timing of the song suggests the incorrect one. The opening theme of the 1960’s animated TV show, Top Cat, is one such case. Right after the beginning it sounds as though the lyrics are “Whose (belonging to TC) intellectual close friends get to call him TC.” If you have ever seen the show, you know that none of TC’s friends are intellectual. TC is the only one of the bunch. What they are really singing is this:

Who’s (who is) intellectual. (Period. Full stop.)

Close friends get to call him TC.

No big deal, but it does make things confusing.

And don’t get me started on those angelic choirs such as used in Disney movies in the ’50’s that are totally unintelligible.