avevale_intelligencer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
avevale_intelligencer) wrote2017-05-03 08:51 pm
avevale_intelligencer) wrote2017-05-03 08:51 pm
Thoughts on a song
Yes, I know I haven't. I don't know, it's just...I don't feel as much at home here as I did in my little LJ. I know it's better, it's got central heating and the roof doesn't leak and there aren't Russians living in the dustbin, but LJ was where I started out this blogging lark and I was forced to move out of it and I'm just not used to this place yet.
Anyway.
A line in a story I'm working on brought "Walk Away Renee" to my mind, and trying it over, I realised I was singing "Don't walk away, Renee, you won't see me papa tulang-gown," which doesn't make a whole heap of sense even for me. So I went Googling, and found the Four Tops version, which is the one I know, with the lyrics, and corrected my mondegreen. And then I found out that that was not the original version, which was recorded by a group called the Left Banke, and possibly co-written by their keyboard player about a girl he may or may not have been in love with. So I listened to two recordings of them doing it.
They don't do it right.
Let me rephrase that. The band that originally performed the song sing the second line of the chorus, the one I had so much trouble with, a certain way. They do it "ta-tum ta-ta-ta-taa tum tum tum." And it sounds...limp. Nothing there. When the Four Tops did it, either they, or the producer, or somebody, tweaked it just a little, to "ta-tum tum tum ta-ta-ta-taa-taa," and it lifts the whole chorus nine yards over the head of the original. Which only goes to show that creativity doesn't stop when the song is written.
As for the rest of the song, the lyrics are very good, though I get the feeling they may have picked the best three verses out of an awful lot of them. There's a disjointed quality to them. The arrangement is nice too, in both versions, though "Reach Out" will always be my favourite Four Tops song in that respect.
Anyway.
A line in a story I'm working on brought "Walk Away Renee" to my mind, and trying it over, I realised I was singing "Don't walk away, Renee, you won't see me papa tulang-gown," which doesn't make a whole heap of sense even for me. So I went Googling, and found the Four Tops version, which is the one I know, with the lyrics, and corrected my mondegreen. And then I found out that that was not the original version, which was recorded by a group called the Left Banke, and possibly co-written by their keyboard player about a girl he may or may not have been in love with. So I listened to two recordings of them doing it.
They don't do it right.
Let me rephrase that. The band that originally performed the song sing the second line of the chorus, the one I had so much trouble with, a certain way. They do it "ta-tum ta-ta-ta-taa tum tum tum." And it sounds...limp. Nothing there. When the Four Tops did it, either they, or the producer, or somebody, tweaked it just a little, to "ta-tum tum tum ta-ta-ta-taa-taa," and it lifts the whole chorus nine yards over the head of the original. Which only goes to show that creativity doesn't stop when the song is written.
As for the rest of the song, the lyrics are very good, though I get the feeling they may have picked the best three verses out of an awful lot of them. There's a disjointed quality to them. The arrangement is nice too, in both versions, though "Reach Out" will always be my favourite Four Tops song in that respect.