Curio Cabinet / Song Curio

They were a dynamic, music-making duo…until they weren’t. In 1967’s The Two of Us, British composers and songwriters Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent, the latter of whom passed away on this day in 2015, seem like the perfect couple. Indeed, the husband-and-wife team not only wrote, sang, and composed music together, they also wrote hits for the likes of Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. Their joint career was so successful that they came to be known as “Mr. and Mrs. Music.” The Two of Us has the feel of a sitcom theme song with its bouncy, repeating refrain and lyrics about a couple enjoying the simple things in life. Yet, after a massively successful musical partnership and a 35-year marriage, Trent and Hatch had a famously messy divorce. It included legal disputes over which spouse wrote which of their most recent songs, with Trent fighting to be recognized as songwriter on several tracks that Hatch took full credit for. Sometimes, as Sinatra would say, That’s Life!

[Image description: A digital illustration depicting a woman singing in front of a piano and two horn players.] Credit & copyright: Mollyroselee, Pixabay
 

There’s no reason to cry when you’ve got 80 Grammy nominations (not to mention 28 actual Grammy awards). Legendary music producer Quincy Jones, who was born on this day in 1933, has had a 60-year career as one of the most successful Black music producers in American history. Although he’s mostly thought of as the producer of some of Michael Jackson’s biggest hits, from Bad to The Way You Make Me Feel, the first big hit Jones helped create had a very different sound. 1963’s It’s My Party, performed by Lesley Gore, still shows up in pop culture today, with its boppy earworm of a tune and its kitchy refrain of “it’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to.” Jones and Gore went through hundreds of demo tracks after deciding to work together, but It’s My Party was the only tune they both liked. When Jones learned that rival producer Phil Spector was going to release a version of the song performed by The Crystals, Jones released his version earlier than planned, and it was an instant hit. In the music business, it can pay to be the first one to cry!

[Image description: A woman wearing a gold party hat stares sadly at a birthday cake.] Credit & copyright: Polina Tankilevitch, Pexels
 

It's Flashback Friday, and the anniversary of the first successful telephone call back in 1876. Enjoy these curios all about phones and communication!   Sometimes, all it takes to make a hit is a single, compelling image. That was the case with Glen Campbell’s Wichita Lineman, a song inspired by songwriter Jimmy Web’s sighting of a solitary lineman working atop a telephone pole along the barren Kansas-Oklahoma border. The song helped propel its album of the same name to a five-week, number-one run atop the U.S. album chart in 1968. Wichita Lineman’s straightforward lyrics about a blue collar working man helped make it a country hit, and led many to question whether Web himself had any experience working as a lineman. In an interview with Songfacts, Web put those rumors firmly to rest, saying, “No, I never worked for the phone company. But then, I'm not a journalist. I'm not Woody Guthrie. I'm a songwriter and I can write about anything I want to.” Web’s demo tape greatly excited Campbell, who found that his own versions didn’t quite capture the demo’s raw feel...until he added Web’s Hammond organ to the instrumentation. The rest is story-song history.

[Image description: A black and white photo of Glen Campbell smiling and holding a guitar.] Credit & copyright: Wikimedia Commons, CBS Television, Public Domain
 

It may be Tuesday, but it’s also the anniversary of Blue Monday. On this day in 1983, British rock band New Order released one of their biggest hits, and one of their most mysterious. At the time of its release, the song’s futuristic, synth-heavy sound, accompanied by vocals that resemble Gregorian chanting, set it apart from most mainstream rock. It was also seemingly loaded with mystery. How had New Order achieved such an odd sound? What did the song’s cryptic lyrics really mean? Well, the song’s instrumentation was accomplished using drum machines and a sequencer—a device that could play electronic melodies. As for the song’s lyrics (which don’t include the song’s title and have been said to be about everything from drug use to emotional abuse) they may be simpler than they appear. In an interview with Songfacts, New Order bass player Peter Hook claimed that there wasn’t much behind the lyrics. The band simply chose words that seemed to work well with the song’s odd melody. The track’s title came from a labeled illustration in a Kurt Vonnegut book that one band member was reading. Turns out this tune is more eclectic than inexplicable.

[Image description: A guitar and other instruments sit on a stage under blue lighting.] Credit & copyright: moronistaffmarie, Pixabay
 

Sail on, silver girl! On this day in 1970, American folk-pop duo Simon & Garfunkel hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 with an unlikely hit: Bridge Over Troubled Water. This tune about helping a friend through their troubles is quiet and melancholy for most of its runtime, featuring acoustic guitars and soft vocals. However, the song builds to a famously loud and triumphant crescendo which includes drums, cymbals, piano, steel guitar, Peruvian instruments, and a long and boisterous final vocal note. Written by Paul Simon and sung by Art Garfunkel, (with harmonizing from Simon, of course) the song remained at number one for six weeks. But just what does the song mean by “bridge over troubled water?” While the lyric is meant to reference the power of friendship, it also inspired a longstanding rumor that the song was inspired by an actual bridge over a choppy river: the Bickleigh Bridge in East Devon, England. Garfunkel later clarified, in an interview with the BBC, that the bridge in the song was just a metaphor. Simon had taken the phrase “bridge over troubled water” from a Baptist hymn. When it comes to music, not everything is literal.

[Image description: A wooden bridge in the woods.] Credit & copyright: OrcaTec, Pixabay
 

It's Flashback Friday, and Twin Peaks Day! In honor of the hit television series Twin Peaks, enjoy these curios all about T.V. "It's cosmic!" That was the response of Twin Peaks creator and director David Lynch upon viewing the MIDI notation of one of the pieces from the show's original soundtrack, Laura Palmer's Theme. The song starts by vacillating between three ominous tones before introducing a climbing piano at 1:00. The keys, backed by a chorus of strings and synthesizers hits its dramatic climax at 1:28. At 1:56, the ominous tones return—only to be brushed off by the piano again at 2:38, reaching a second climax at 3:04. What do you get when you put it all together? Twin peaks, of course! The coincidence seems a little eerier when you consider the plot of the 1990 TV drama, which follows an FBI agent as he uses his own dreams and intuitions to solve a small-town murder mystery. (The show is back this month with new episodes after a 25-year hiatus.) Composer Angelo Badalamenti recalls writing the song alongside Lynch, using a similarly dreamy technique. Lynch would imagine a scene and Badalamenti would improvise melodies to fit the scene's mood. It all seems to come back to Lynch's sentiment that "when you're an artist, you pick up on certain things that are in the air." Put two artists together in the same airspace? Well, you could say it's doubly cosmic.  

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[Image description: Mount St. Helens in Washington.] Credit & copyright: 12019, Pixabay

It's Flashback Friday, and World Human Spirit Day! Enjoy these curios about religion around the world. A religious song, sung in French by a nun? Truly, this has to be the unlikeliest of all one-hit wonders. Yet, on this day in 1963, Dominique by The Singing Nun began a four-week, number-one run on the U.S. singles chart. The simple ditty features trickling acoustic guitar and a four-part harmony between Sister Luc Gabrielle and three backup vocalists. The song’s lyrics tell of a nomadic, evangelizing man named Dominique, whom Catholic listeners might recognize as St. Dominic, a 12th Century priest—assuming, of course, that they could understand French. As for Sister Luc Gabrielle herself, her talent was discovered at her convent in Fichermont, Belgium. After she won a few musical prizes, a church elder asked her to record an LP so that the convent could hand out copies as gifts. Record producers at the Brussels studio where she recorded her music had other ideas, though. With her permission, they commercially released the LP. Luc Gabrielle became “Soeur Sourire” or “Sister Smile” in Europe, and “The Singing Nun” in America. The sister’s story of breakout music fame even inspired a movie starring Debbie Reynolds. Pretty glamorous stuff for a nun!

[Image description: A small, white figurine of a nun playing guitar and singing.] Credit & copyright: Aktim, Pixabay
 

It’s Valentine’s Day, and the day after a groundbreaking Super Bowl halftime show by superstar Rhianna—the perfect time to talk about one of her most famous love songs. After taking a break from live performances for seven years, Rhianna shattered Super Bowl expectations by revealing mid-performance that she is pregnant, making her the first pregnant woman to ever headline the show. Among other hits, Rhianna performed 2011’s We Found Love. The song, with its music video referencing her famously abusive relationship with rapper Chris Brown, is both upbeat and melancholy. It surely owes its danceability to Scottish electro-pop producer Calvin Harris, who collaborated with Rhianna on the track. Rhianna’s wistful, crooning vocals, and the repeated refrain of “we found love in a hopeless place” bring just the right touch of sadness without feeling out-of-step with the beat. Upon its release, We Found Love proved even more popular than Rhianna’s own previous hit, Umbrella, spending eight consecutive weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100. No wonder she worked this one into the halftime show!

[Image description: Rhianna performs onstage, surrounded by backup dancers in 2011] Credit & copyright: Dindo94/Dindo, Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain Dedication
 

He’s come a long way since his One Direction days! Harry Styles has taken the world by storm in recent years, and that includes the Grammys. Styles’ album Harry’s House recently won Album of the Year, beating out longtime industry giants like Beyoncé, Coldplay, and Kendrick Lamar. Of the album’s three singles, As It Was may have had the most to do with the album’s big win. This wistful track employs the bubbly sounds of synth-pop, but to sad, nostalgic effect. With lyrics in which Harry calls himself out by name, the song tells the story of someone who yearns for the past but knows he can never return. Its raw vulnerability seems to showcase that Styles will never again return to the bubblegum-pop-esque sound that first made him famous, and listeners certainly seem happy about it. The song became the most streamed song in the U.S. in a single day when it was first released, and it even achieved a Guinness World Record the most-streamed track on Spotify in 24 hours by a male artist. Not too shabby for an ex-boybander!

[Image description: Harry Styles, wearing a white t-shirt, holds a microphone and points while performing onstage in 2014.] Credit & copyright: Ianthebush, Wikimedia Commons, image cropped for size.
 

It's Flashback Friday, and the first day of Black History Month! Enjoy these curios celebrating the history and innovations of Black Americans. 
When director Ryan Coogler was looking for music to represent the world of Black Panther, he went straight to the reigning king of rap. Originally, Kendrick Lamar was asked to contribute a song or two to the film's soundtrack; but upon viewing early footage, Lamar decided to bring together artists from around the world to create an album inspired by the fictional world of Wakanda. Black Panther: The Album shot to the #1 spot on the Billboard album charts last week, and eight of its tracks cracked the Top 100 singles. The album captures some of the most important themes at play in the movie: namely what responsibilities the powerful (of Wakanda) and not-so-powerful have to play in the aftermath of colonialism. The lead single All the Stars, teams Lamar with SZA to bring a downtempo jam to images of extreme poverty-shanty towns and afrofuturist fantasies in the music video. For all the dazzling effects of the Marvel Comics film and Lamar's album, the important conversations they're unearthing are as valuable as Vibranium.
 

Explicit content warning: this song contains strong language.
 

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Image credit & copyright: Merlijn Hoek, ccbysa/GFDL, Wikimedia Commons, image cropped for size.

Talk about a supergroup! In late 2022, four of Japan’s biggest rockstars, Yoshiki, Hyde, Sugizo, and Miyavi, announced that they’d be forming a band together. For those unfamiliar with Japanese rock, imagine Mick Jagger, Bono, Steven Tyler and Jon Bon Jovi teaming up, and you might have a sense of how exciting this is for fans of the genre. The aptly-named THE LAST ROCKSTARS released first, titular single, THE LAST ROCKSTARS (Paris Mix) on December 23. Written by Yoshiki, who made a name for himself in the 1990s with a distorted, heavy metal style that was a rarity in Japan at the time, THE LAST ROCKSTARS (Paris Mix) has a very different sound. Though it is undoubtedly a rock song, with its ultra-fast, bombastic beat and distorted electric guitars, its verses evoke modern, mainstream Japanese pop with clear vocals and lyrics about love and reaching for one’s dreams. Clearly, these rockers are out to show that their style isn’t stuck in the pre-Y2K era. As Sugizo said in a recent public statement, “We want to put what's left of our lives on the line to make the world rock with our music.” Rock on!

[Image description: Yoshiki plays piano as he performs onstage in front of an illuminated starry backdrop.] Credit & copyright: Justin Higuchi, Wikimedia Commons, image cropped for size.
 

It's Flashback Friday. In honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, today’s curios focus on the Holocaust and World War II. 
In these uncertain times, Kishi Bashi remains one of the most hopeful voices in indie music. The singer-songwriter-violinist recently released For Every Voice That Never Sang as part of NPR's Morning Edition Song Project. The series features songs for the COVID era: in Bashi's case, his song became a reflection on the rise of anti-Asian hate in the U.S. In For Every Voice, Bashi layers his trademark violin parts and sings delicately in the chorus of his solidarity with those who have been isolated and victimized by hate speech. Having previously explored themes related to the World War II Japanese internment camps, Bashi is no stranger to processing grief in his music, though he does try to balance things out: "I think the sense of optimism is something that I've always tried to inject into my music. Because when you think about minority identity, you could go to town on how painful it is ... but a lot of people want to get out of that pain. They want things to heal them." Here's hoping For Every Voice That Never Sang makes listeners feel the sense of optimism that only a Kishi Bashi song can convey.

[Image credit & copyright: William Neuheisel, Wikimedia Commons, image cropped for size.

Today we’re honoring legendary rocker David Crosby, who passed away on January 18. A founding member of both The Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash, he managed to make music that changed with the times. From the folksy sound of the mid-1960s to the classic hard rock of the 70s and 80s, Crosby was there for it all. One of his most unique contributions to the rock world has to be 1969’s Wooden Ships, an over-five-minute-long jam full of wailing harmonies and heavy, distorted guitars. Though the song was written by David Crosby, Paul Kantner, and Stephen Stills together, most of the song’s lyrics came from Crosby, who fittingly penned them while cruising around on his real-life boat, The Mayan. They deliver a stark anti-war message via a sci-fi story in which most of humanity has been wiped out due to nuclear war. The singers serve as some of the last survivors, sailing off in a titular wooden ship. The song’s quirky subject matter did nothing to dull its popularity, as it was one of the few songs at Woodstock to be performed twice—once by Crosby, Stills & Nash, and once by Jefferson Airplane. Encore!

[Image description: A black-and-white photo of David Crosby singing at a microphone.] Credit & copyright: Christopher Michel, Wikimedia Commons, image cropped for size.

It's Flashback Friday! In honor of National DJ Day, enjoy these curios all about music. 
Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock's classic It Takes Two is a lesson in never underestimating the power of a hip-hop hook. Debuting on their album of the same name over 30 years ago, the tune samples the James Brown-produced song Think (About It) by Lyn Collins. Base and E-Z Rock found their hook 1:22 minutes into Collins' Think (About It) when the accompanying band arrives at a drum break with the inimitable "yeah… woo" and chant of "It takes two to make a thing go right, / It takes two to make it out of sight..." The duo combined the Collins' sample with Base's freestyle lyrics and electronic hi-hat beats from Strafe's Set It Off, and—voila!—they had an unstoppable and countlessly sampled hit on their hands. But It Takes Two didn't just take inspiration from Collins' work; it actually gave her a second chance at the fame and respect she deserved as a then-unappreciated soul great. As for Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock, well, let's just say they made a rap classic that was out of sight!
 

Below: Lyn Collins' original track; the Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock smash hit which features Rhonda Parris singing Collins' famous chorus.
 

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Image credit & copyright: Mick Tobyn, Wikimedia Commons, image cropped for size, this image is hereby distributed under the same license linked here.
 

Today we’re paying tribute to a legend. Guitarist Jeff Beck, who passed away on January 10, first rose to fame in the 1960s as part of the British rock band The Yardbirds. But Beck was anything but an ordinary rocker. His work went on to inspire entire rock genres, including heavy metal. By the mid-1970s, he was crafting original songs and covering well-known tracks in a unique instrumental style in which his guitar seemed to “sing” the melodies. One of the most famous examples is his 1975 instrumental version of the Stevie Wonder song Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers. Beck’s jazz-rock fusion sound comes through loud and clear as his mournful guitar wails over the subdued beat. Blow by Blow, the album on which the song appeared, is one of Beck’s best-remembered albums today, and was an immediate hit in the U.S. upon its release. Oddly, it didn’t do too well in Beck’s native England. Seems the brits didn’t dig the heavy jazz influence. That didn’t stop him from winning an award for outstanding contributions to British music in 2014 though!

[Image description: Jeff Beck smiles on stage while holding a guitar.] Credit & copyright: Raph_PH, Wikimedia Commons, image cropped for size.
 

If you’ve ever taken guitar lessons (or played Guitar Hero) you’re probably familiar with Deep Purple’s 1972 hit, Smoke On The Water. The rock classic features a simple, repeating guitar riff that makes it easy to play. Its lyrics are a bit more complex, though. In fact, their meaning can be downright hard to decipher. Though it may not sound like a tribute song, Smoke On The Water is actually about a real life disaster and pays homage to one man’s heroic act. Claude Nobs, who passed away on this day in 2013, was the founder and general manager of the Montreux Jazz Festival, in Montreux, Switzerland. In 1971, a deadly fire broke out at the casino hosting the festival. Deep Purple watched as Nobs ran back into the burning building several times in order to rescue young festival attendees who were trying to hide from the flames. Smoke On The Water is about smoke from the fire hovering over Lake Geneva, while Nobs gets a specific mention in the line “Funky Claude was running in and out pulling kids out the ground.” Not a bad way to become a park of rock history!

[Image description: Members of the band Deep Purple post against a black background.] Credit & copyright: EMI Records, Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain
 

It's Flashback Friday and National Cuddle Up Day, which encourages cuddling to stave off the January cold. May these pleasant curios add to the comfort! 
The End of the Road was nowhere in sight for Boyz II Men in 1992. After years spent perfecting their four-part harmonies as teenagers in Philadelphia, the group broke out in the biggest way imaginable. 25 years ago, their slow jam topped the Billboard Hot 100 for 13 weeks, breaking a 35-year old record held by Elvis Presley. Call Boyz II Men's success beginner's luck if you will, but the group's grooves and cute outfit coordination were backed up by the songwriting team of Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds and L.A. Reid, two icons who would come to define a new era of the Motown "Hitsville" sound and '90s R&B. As if one smash tune wasn't enough, Boyz II Men broke their own record twice after: I'll Make Love to You stayed at #1 for 14 weeks and their collaboration with Mariah Carey on One Sweet Day still holds an unbeatable 16 weeks at the top position. The only other track to finally match the Boyz performance is Despacito by Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee, and Justin Bieber—though if we do say so, nothing beats putting on a flannel shirt over a turtleneck, throwing on some soft lighting, and karaoking to the original '90s heart-wrenching ballad!

 

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Image credit & copyright: Lunchbox LP, Wikimedia Commons, image cropped for size.