Three Minute Pop Songs: More Recent Edition

It would be easy to think, from this week’s posts, that the three minute pop song was a phenomenon of the 60s and early 70s, never to be heard of again. Even They Don’t Know, from the 80s, was produced with a certain retro feel, and the same case could be made for the British ska scene in general, if not of Three Minute Hero in particular. But I am here to report that the three minute pop song is alive and well. Here are an example from the 90s and one from 2003. Each has thematic elements that are universal to pop songs throughout the ages, and each, musically, belongs entirely to its time.

Fountains of Wayne: Hackensack

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Hackensack is a beautiful pop ballad, and a love song. The guy pledges devotion to the girl who has left him behind, swearing to be there for her should she ever return. The production is understated for this kind of song, compared to how it might have been done in the sixties or seventies. But the emotion comes through every bit as clearly. For this kind of song to work, every element must be exactly in place, and yet it must all feel effortless. I offer this as a fine example of how it’s done.

Toad the Wet Sprocket: Walk on the Ocean

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Walk on the Ocean is a little more complicated. This is a little gem of songwriting, of the sort that makes the charts only once in a while. Taken literally, the song tells of a couple who make a trip to the seashore, and then come home. If that was all, it wouldn’t be worth remembering the song. But Walk on the Ocean also works on another level. It seems to me that the trip to the seashore is actually a remembrance of the characters’ youth. They remember all of the friends they’ve always said they would get back in touch with, but probably won’t. And they remember an innocence lost that can never be regained.

Three Minute Pop Songs: Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)

Looking Glass: Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)

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I was at an acoustic jam last night, and during our dinner break, we started throwing out the names of songs we wanted to learn. Someone suggested "Brandy", and someone else laughed derisively. I came to the aid of the first person, because I've always loved this catchy story song. At some point in the past decade of so, I discovered the Looking Glass formed in New Brunswick, N.J., further endearing the song to me.

Some say the song was inspired by a local oddity: the grave of Mary Ellis. According to local lore, she fell for a sea captain who vowed to marry her, but never returned. Her grave stands on the banks of the Raritan River, where she came to every day to wait for his return. Even though the area surrounding her grave became a flea market, then a movie theater parking lot, her grave remains.

Three Minute Pop Songs: I Want You Back

The Jackson 5: I Want You Back

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The thing about the perfect pop song is how infectious it is, how even if you want to not like it, it will find a way into your veins and make your toe tap without you realizing it, or have you humming it on the car on the way home from work. There is perhaps nothing as saccharine and infectious as the hits the Jackson 5 were putting out in the 1960's and 70's on the Motown label.

"I Want You Back" was released in 1969 with lead vocals by a preteen Michael Jackson and was one of their biggest hits. It is a perfect three minutes of toe-tapping, head bopping joy.

Three Minute Pop Songs: You're the Best

Joe Esposito: You're the Best

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I'm not quite sure why I had this song in my library, but I'm glad to share it here anyway.

This is, of course, the song that played during the tournament montage in the movie The Karate Kid. As a wide eyed Daniel Russo punched and kicked his way through the members of the Kobra Kai dojo, Joe Esposito's lyrics told us all what we already knew. Russo was the best around, and nothing was ever gonna keep him down.

Esposito actually had a fairly long and distinguished career in the music industry. He scored a top 5 single with Donna Summer in 1978 as a member of the R&B group The Brooklyn Dreams ("Heaven Knows"). He is also a three time Grammy nominee and has written songs for artists such as Summer, Aretha Franklin, Patti LaBelle, and Stephen Stills.

Still... he'll always be known for these three minutes.

Interesting sidenote... In a 2008 interview with Adam Carolla, Esposito said this song was originally written for Rocky III, but was replaced at the last minute by "Eye of the Tiger." Rocky or Russo, who do you think is the best?

Three Minute Pop Songs: There's Always Something There To Remind Me

Dionne Warwick: (There's) Always Something There To Remind Me

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Three-minute pop songs were a hallmark of the 60's – the length suited AM radio demands, for one thing. Here's a tune from a pair of songwriters who met working in the NYC Brill Building, a music producing center since the 30's. Burt Bacharach, composer and pianist, teamed up with Hal David, who wrote the lyrics, and together they penned dozens of hits for Dusty Springfield, Gene Pitney, The Carpenters, Jackie DeShannon, The Fifth Dimension, Tom Jones, B.J. Thomas, and others. Their premier vocalist, though, was Dionne Warwick, who had 38 charting singles with Bacharach in the 60's and early 70's. Bacharach-David were so prolific at cranking out the 3-minute pop song that no fewer than 12 unique songs of theirs on my hard drive fall within 5 seconds of the holy 3:00 mark. This hit song from 1967 hits it exactly.

Three Minute Pop Songs: Three Minute Hero

The Selecter: Three Minute Hero

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When I found out what our theme was this week, this is the song I had to post. That it clocks at exactly three minutes is probably not a coincidence, given the subject.

How do we define a pop song? In the 1980s, British ska came out. It was never even remotely popular here in the United States. Sure, Madness had a hit with Our House, but that wasn’t ska any more. But this music came from England, and there it was quite another story. The two-tone ska rode up the British pop charts from the beginning. Still, the members of The Selecter didn’t know that was going to happen when they went into the studio to record Three Minute Hero. So the singer’s hope of singing that one song that could a get a working man through the drudgery of his day was an attempt at irony. The great irony is that it actually happened.

Three Minute Pop Songs: Reach Out (I'll Be There)

The Four Tops: Reach Out (I'll Be There)

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I feel as though I have to hurry up and post a musical apology for that last entry of mine, guys. So let me take you from the ridiculous to the sublime.

In my mind, there are three songwriting teams who were major contributors to pop songs of the 60's. I hope to post about all three in coming days, but let me start off with three hugely talented men who mean a lot to this Detroit-bred gal: Lamont Dozier and Brian and Edward Holland. They were known collectively as Holland-Dozier-Holland, and together they wrote an enormous number of Motown-label hits for Berry Gordy's artists between 1962-1967, names that include Martha and the Vandellas, the Marvelettes, the Supremes, the Miracles, Jr. Walker and the All-Stars, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, the Isley Brothers, and the group I'm featuring here: the Four Tops. Rolling Stone magazine ranks this #206 of the top 500 rock/pop songs, so there! Hopefully I'm now forgiven for that last tune.

Three Minute Pop Songs: They Don't Know

Tracey Ullman: They Don't Know

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Audiophiles know that 7-time Emmy Award winning actress and comedienne Tracey Ullman - whose late eighties sketch comedy show spawned The Simpsons - was also an international pop star for a short time in the early eighties; her 1983 debut album You Broke My Heart In 17 Places and its 1984 follow-up You Caught Me Out spawned 6 top 100 UK hits, making it all the odder that she would move on from music almost completely, except as a stage-and-screen actress, for the remainder of her long and fruitful career.

Ullman's music tended towards retro Spector-esque 60s and 70s pop with a humorous, over-the-top 80s flair, but this Kirsty MacColl cover, her highest-charting hit, plays it relatively straight. Catchy as hell, and perfectly pop, from swirling intro to short, ringing fade-out.

Three Minute Pop Songs: Gimme Some Lovin'

The Spencer Davis Group: Gimme Some Lovin'

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Steve Winwood was only 17 years old when Spencer Davis recruited him as a vocalist in 1965. Now all of these years later most people don't remember much about Spencer Davis but Winwood went on to have a legendary career that has spanned multiple bands and decades.

The Spencer Davis Group only had a couple of hit songs before Winwood left the band to form Traffic. Without their dynamic frontman SDG foundered and Davis spent much of the rest of his career as a producer for other acts.

Interestingly, the only other major hit that The Spencer Davis Group produced was I'm A Man, clocking in at 3:01. So these guys were true forerunners of the perfect pop song!

Three Minute Pop Songs: Philosophy of the World

The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World

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Some pop songs capture us with a compelling hook. Others may tap into a personal reminiscence of our lost youth. Some are slow and moving. Some are fast and spirited. We'd happily play them until we wore out the grooves.

And some are none of these things. Listening to them can be considered more of a rite of passage than a musical treat. Sadly for you, I have one such song that clocks in at exactly 3:00.

The Shaggs are unique in American music, both in their backstory and in their approach to music. Three sisters formed the group at the insistence of their father, whose own mother had predicted during a palmreading that "he would marry a strawberry blonde woman, that he would have two sons after she had died, and that his daughters would form a popular music group." After the first two predictions came true, he set about to realize the third by yanking his daughters out of their New Hampshire school and setting them to work learning to sing and play.

The results weren't pretty. For one thing, these girls can't find the rhythm with both hands and a flashlight. Their lyrics might pass for profound if English were your fourth or fifth language. Harmony – that's a town in Maine. So when Papa Wiggin died in 1975, the sisters hung up their guitars, dismantled the drum kit, and moved on with their lives.

Still, as is sometimes the way of these things (see also, for example, Florence Foster Jenkins or Mrs. Miller), their single 1969 album took flight, first catching the attention of the band NRBQ, and later Frank Zappa and Kurt Cobain. "Philosophy of the World" stands as a quintessential example of the style known as Outsider Music.

Give it a listen, if only for the bragging rights.

Public Domain/ Three Minute Pop Songs: The Lion Sleeps Tonight

The Tokens: The Lion Sleeps Tonight

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Here is the perfect transition tune to welcome our new theme. Of course, The Lion Sleeps Tonight is a traditional song, known in its home of Africa as Wimoweh. And it was a huge hit for The Tokens here in the United States. So Public Domain and Pop Song are covered. Three Minutes? Ahh, there’s the rub. The Tokens’ hit version in the sixties came in at 2:45. What to do? Well, I had a bit of luck. It turns out that The Tokens recorded the song again for one of those wonderful doo-wop specials on PBS. And their voices still sound great. And there are the extra 15 seconds, without having to resort to just applause at the end. To top it all off, you get to hear The Tokens recorded with modern equipment. It’s a win-win-win situation.

Public Domain: The Water Is Wide

Karla Bonoff (with James Taylor): The Water Is Wide

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Tim O'Brien, Darol Anger, David Grisman, Michael Manring, Bela Fleck, John Jennings: The Water Is Wide

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Indigo Girls, Jewel, Sarah McLachlan: The Water Is Wide

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From the Wikipedia entry:

"The Water Is Wide" (also called "O Waly, Waly") is thought to be an English or Scottish folk song that has been sung since the 1600s and has seen considerable popularity through to the 21st century... Cecil Sharp collected this song during his journey to America in World War I.

The inherent challenges of love are made apparent in the narrator's imagery: "Love is handsome, love is kind" during the novel honeymoon phase of any relationship. However, as time progresses, "love grows old, and waxes cold". Even true love, the narrator admits, can "fade away like morning dew"...

This post came in a roundabout way, in that my first song choice for this theme was Shenandoah, and I remembered the Heritage CD I had, which contained a version by the lovely Jane Siberry - however, when I listened, it was over 7 minutes long and a child's voice chimed in and... it just didn't resonate... so I used only Laura Love's interpretation...

However, also on the Heritage CD (an amazing project produced by fiddler Darol Anger, with a terrific array of guest stars) was a gorgeous rendition sung by Tim O'Brien, joined by other brilliant musicians... which in turn made me remember the Lilith Fair collaboration (with Indigo Girls, Jewel and then Sarah McLachlan taking turns on the verses)... which brought to mind an old favorite a few years post-college by Karla Bonoff, joined by James Taylor who lends his distinctive guitar and voice....

All are different and all are goosebump-inducing - as Darol says in his liner notes:

"In my life between the cracks as an art/folk musician, I've always dealt with the metaphor of traditional music as a river connecting the present with our parents, grandparents and on back It's a good metaphor because you can just about tease it to death. In that spirit, I've been moved to try to bring some old songs a ways downriver... They've been alternately worn smooth and built up again and again, polished to mirrors, so we see ourselves in them. They are truly emissaries from upriver, reminding us of who we are and where we come from. Point us in a direction. Are you going upriver or down?"

Public domain: Sakura, Sakura

Koto: Sakura, Sakura
(from a Japanese website that I cannot read)

Miyavi: JPN Pride

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With age comes wisdom. I've learned never to volunteer to play horse with anyone from NYC, never to cook for anyone from the south, and never to pawn off my knowledge of American or British folk music around all the other much more savvy posters here on Star Maker Machine.

Darius, though, suggested I try to find some J-rock in the public domain. Easier said than done; their copyright law doesn't give us the break on songs from before 1923. So I'm being creative here – work with me, 'k?

Sakura, Sakura (Cherry Blossoms) is a traditional Japanese folk song, written for children to learn to play on the stringed koto. If you have a Japanese music box, odds are good that it plays this melody. Mine does. Words were added that translate to something like:

Cherry blossoms, cherry blossoms,
On meadow-hills and mountains
As far as you can see.
Is it a mist or clouds?
Fragrant in the morning sun.
Cherry blossoms, cherry blossoms,
Flowers in full bloom.

Miyavi, my favorite Neovisual Kei artist, took this classic melody and wrote a song heavily based on it. 'JPN Pride' is an ode to the Japanese spirit. His lyrics translate to something like:

JPN PRIDE...
Let the high mountain grasses we call pride bloom in our hearts,
Like beautiful flowers that sing and dance, scattering on the flag of the rising sun,
Sakura, sakura, my heart is stolen by the flowers raining down, bewitched by dreams,
Sakura, sakura, not even noticing the flowers on the ground, I just walk over them...
(translated by taijiproject)

m(_ _)m (this is an emoticon – a bow, can you see it?)

Public Domain: Star Maker Tradition Edition

It is the custom, here on Star Maker, to end the week with a multi-song post. In a week that has emphasized traditional music, I could hardly do otherwise. So here are songs from three albums I wanted to get to this week, and somehow never did.

Bill Morrissey and Greg Brown: He Was a Friend of Mine

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It would have been enough to have a track from either Bill Morrissey or Greg Brown. These two are among the finest artists in acoustic music today. But here they are together.

I first heard He Was a Friend of Mine in the version by the Byrds. The lyrics don’t quite fit, but the song always felt like a tribute to John F Kennedy, and I think the Byrds may have had that in mind. So I was surprised to find that this is a traditional song.

John Wesley Harding: Little Musgrave

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As far as I know, John Wesley Harding was only a folk singer for one album, but it is a fine one. Little Musgrave tells the story of a man of low rank who beds a lord’s wife. These stories always end badly. It is not surprising that a lord’s wife would stray, given that she was in an arranged marriage where love was not part of the deal. But the songs where the lord is the one who strays have very different endings. Completely unfair!

The New St George: The Mermaid

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I seem to be stuck on songs of the sea this week. But fear not, if we ever do a week of sea songs, I have plenty of material left. I wanted to make sure I included a tale of a sailor’s encounter with the supernatural this week, and this is one of the most beautiful examples I know. For the story of the New St George, go here.

Public Domain: Shenandoah

Laura Love: Shenandoah

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I have a childhood memory of going to my local movie theater to see Shenandoah, starring Jimmy Stewart - it was released in June 1965, so I was almost 11. I of course had learned about the Civil War in school, but I didn't pick up the nuances of how the North vs. South battle affected families personally until a repeat viewing years later. I do, however, recall loving the song that began the film, and which wove throughout during crucial scenes - to this day, it invokes a feeling of poignancy and pain...

From the Wikipedia entry:

"Oh Shenandoah" (also called simply "Shenandoah", or "Across the Wide Missouri") is a traditional American folk song of uncertain origin, dating at least to the early 19th century...

The lyrics may tell the story of a roving trader in love with the daughter of an Indian chief; in this interpretation, the rover tells the chief of his intent to take the girl with him far to the west, across the Missouri River. Other interpretations tell of a pioneer's nostalgia for the Shenandoah River Valley in Virginia, and a young woman who is its daughter; or of a Union soldier in the American Civil War, dreaming of his country home to the west of the Missouri river, in Shenandoah, Iowa (though the town lies some 50 miles east of the river)...

The song is also associated with escaped slaves. They were said to sing the song in gratitude because the river allowed their scent to be lost."

I adore this version by Laura Love - her cracked, distinctive, gentle yet strong voice more than does it justice... and she lends her own interpretation of loss and longing to the tune...

Public Domain: Jack-a-Roe

Grateful Dead: Jack-a-Roe (acoustic)

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Grateful Dead: Jack-a-Roe (electric)

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Jack-a-Roe tells the story of a woman who dresses as a man, and goes to sea to find her man. It is the best known of many such songs. There are so many because this really did happen. What would drive women to do this, and why did they become separated in the first place? It was the fault of the press gangs. Let me explain.

From 1664 to 1812, whenever the British found themselves at war and short of sailors, they would send the press gangs into seaside taverns and other places where seamen were known to gather, and take all the eligible men essentially prisoner. These unfortunates were then forced to serve in the King or Queen’s navy. Many of these men, once they found themselves in this situation, would “volunteer” to qualify for extra pay. In official statistics, this allowed the government to report that the press gang problem was not as bad as it actually was. But the girlfriends of these disappeared men knew better.

In 1981, the Grateful Dead released two albums, both the products of their recent tour. The tour was unusual, because there was one electric set and one acoustic set at each show. Songs from the acoustic set were collected into the album Reckoning, while the electric sets yielded the album Dead Set. Reckoning was the first time the Dead put Jack-a-Roe on an official release. However, I combed through an online archive of Grateful Dead shows to prepare for this post, and I found that the Dead had been playing the song live for some time. Every performance that I found from both before and after the Reckoning tour was electric. So, I have included an electric version as well. To my ear, Jack-a-Roe never sounded better than in late April and May of 1977. The version I have chosen is from May.

Public Domain: The Moonshiner

The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem: The Moonshiner

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Bob Dylan: Moonshiner

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"The Moonshiner" plays into one of the biggest Irish stereotypes by celebrating alcohol. The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem sing it like most Irish folk groups do, as a rousing drinking song in waltz time (though they do give it a little extra ham, as they often did).

On he other hand, the Dylan version (simply called "Moonshiner"), is a mournful ballad, hewing close to the traditional Appalachian version. The narrator is no longer celebrating. The party is over. He's looking back on a life wasted.

Despite their differences, the songs share some of the same lyrics and an obvious common lineage. So which came first? Did the song sober up on its way to the New World? Or is it an American original spruced up for Old World pub audiences? Nobody's really sure.

Either way, it is interesting to note how different these two performances of obtainably the same song are, given that they were recorded only a year apart (Dylan in '62, the Clancys in '63) by two acts who were pals on the Greenwich Village folk scene.

Public Domain: Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody

Al Jolson: Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody

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Judy Garland: Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody

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Rufus Wainwright: Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody

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This song is from a 1918 Broadway musical, Sinbad, which showcased music's biggest star at the time, Al Jolson. For a show ostensibly set in Bagdad, it featured more than a few songs extolling the Old South: "Swanee", "My Mammy", "Darktown Dancin’ School ", and this one. By US law, any song copyrighted or recorded before 1923 is now in the public domain and so it nicely fits our weekly theme.

Travel six blocks north to Carnegie Hall and skip forward 43 years to the night of April 23, 1961, where we find the same song being performed by another of American music's biggest stars: Judy Garland. The concert was a huge milestone for the sometimes erratic performer and won her four Grammys, including Best Album and Best Female Vocalist.

Forty-five years later, same venue, same tune – in fact, all of the same tunes that were sung during Judy's original Carnegie Hall concert were recreated by Canadian-American singer Rufus Wainwright in one man's tribute to a quintessential gay icon. About his homage, he said, "I don't think it would have been possible for anyone other than a gay male to do this concert. In a weird way, a gay man has some sort of perspective on it, I believe."

Quite a legacy for a simple Tin Pan Alley tune written by a Hungarian immigrant.

Public Domain: Bouree

Jethro Tull: Bouree

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One approach to this week’s theme is to find traditional songs. I’ve done that already, and I will again later this week. But most classical music is also in the public domain. And that brings me to Bach. I would say that Bach perfected the art of the fugue. If you’ve ever sung a round, you have an idea what this is. In a fugue, one instrument starts the melody, and the next starts it later, and then the next, and so on. The overlapping parts produce the harmonies and also the overlapping rhythms do their part. Bach would do this with a theme and then variations, and it always worked.

This transformation of something simple into something richer is a hallmark of Bach’s music, even when the fugue is not involved. For this reason, his music appeals to a wide range of musicians today outside of the classical genre. Case in point: Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull. Anderson actually has some classical background, and he has recorded a version of Bouree with an orchestra. But this was the first recording he did of it. In Jethro Tull’s hands, Bouree becomes a folk-rock piece with jazzy overtones. Bouree became one of Jethro Tull’s signature tunes; fans expected to hear it at their shows, and often did. There are several live versions of it available, and the group improvises and plays with the arrangement, so no two versions sound the same. But Anderson and Co never lose track of the beauty of Bach’s original melody.

Public Domain: The Conscripts Edition

Bruce Springsteen: Mrs McGrath

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Boys signed up for war against their wills make the common link here. Ted McGrath probably wouldn't have gone to war if not for his mother and now he has returned with two stumps for legs to show for his troubles. The Wikipedia entry for this song says it can be traced back to the Napoleonic wars but became a popular anti-war song among the Irish in 1916. Bruce Springsteen makes one small change, replacing King of Spain with King of America, a pointed reference to Iraq.

Fairport Convention: The Deserter

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Fairport Convention recorded the Deserter for Liege and Lief and though Matty Groves is the crowd pleaser listen to this track and you might agree it was the standout. A boy refuses to fight and deserts again and again. Prince Albert - presumably Queen Victoria's husband - recognizes that by his determination he has shown the very qualities the English army needs. Which begs the question; what happened next? He could well be Teddy McGrath, unknownst to his mother running off at every opportunity till rescued by the Prince himself and sent off to the front. The horror, the horror

Guest post by John