For the past two weeks I have had bits of a song’s melody in my head, but I couldn’t remember any words, and that made it tough to remember.  Then, last night, I remembered a bit of one line, which, in my brain, went “Didn’t it seem right to walk along the beach last night”, but I still couldn’t find the song from Googling that, either. (It turns out that the word is “sand,” not “beach”.)  Amazingly, though, as soon as I remembered that line I remembered the end of the stanza as well its title “It could be we’re in love”.  Then I was able to find it by Googling.

It amazes me that my brain had been working unconscionsly on this thing for weeks, and finally the neurons came through for me.

The song is “It Could Be We’re in Love”, released in 1967 by The Cryan’ Shames, a Chicago group. It’s a good but not a fantastic song, but it’s catchy and somehow it was lingering in my brain and popped up for unknown reasons.  There are two versions, one with laughing in it and another with some psychedelic vibrato. I’ll put up both.

First, the better 1966 psychedelic version released on LP: (psychedelic vibrato at 1:41).

And here’s the laughing version, from the 1967 single (laughing at 1:49):

I have loved this song ever since, years ago, an Irish friend gave me a CD containing it. This is an instrumental version with Seamus Ennis on uilleann pipes, also called “Irish bagpipes,” accompanied by his daughter Catherine Ennis on the organ.  I have a recorded version but found this live version; I’ve started the video at 3:08 when the song begins.  I find it mournful but not depressing, and incredibly beautiful, even though the melody repeats itself many times. The uilleann pipes, to me, are far more mellifluous than Scottish bagpipes. And here they meld perfectly with the organ.

As far as I can find out, “Easter Snow” is a traditional Irish song whose name has been corrupted. It also apparently had words.  One site says this:

“Paddy Tunney’s mother Brigid appears to have been the oral the source of this in Ireland; another version was recorded in New Brunswick, Canada. Sam Henry included a 1925 version in his ‘Songs of the People’ column in the ‘Northern Constitution’ newspaper under the title Westersnow and an earlier one was discovered in J.P. McCall’s unpublished songbook, where it was said to have come from ‘County Carlow/County Wicklow’, there given the title Esther Snow. Collector Sean O’Boyle wrote of it:

‘Estersnowe is the name of a townland in Roscommon. Originally the place was known by its Gaelic name Diseart Nuadhan (St. Nuadha’s Hermitage) but in the process of adaptation to the English language in Elizabethan times, it became known as Issertnowne. By the nineteenth century the people, when speaking English, called it Estersnowe and rationalised that strange name into Easter Snow. In County Antrim where there is a strong Scots influence, the song is known as Wester Snow.

An instrumental version of the tune is in the Standford-Petrie Collection with two titles in Irish- Sneachta Casga (a literal translation of Easter Snow) and Diseart Nuadhan (the original Gaelic name of the district). The final folk etymology of the name was one I heard from the Donegal Fiddler John Doherty, who played the tune for me but did not know the words of the song. He called the tune Esther Snow and told me that Esther was “a most beautiful lady, with skin as white as the snow.” And then with equal authority, he added: “She was six foot one.” The prosody of the song is particularly interesting, being an echo of the Ochtfhoclach form with double assonantal rhymes (Aicill Dubalta). The double rhymes occur in this song only at the line endings:

Start at the song by pressing the arrow below. There are other instrumental as well as vocal versions on the Internet, but to me this one is by far the best (Seamus was largely responsible for reviving the uilleann pipes as an instrument).  If you have a cat, I’d be interested in knowing how it reacts when it hears this song.

This is only one small fragment of a long list of what I see as the best rock, pop, and folk music of my time. Remember, it’s subjective, Jake!  Feel free to mention your favorites that you don’t see here, though unless I’ve missed something, I’m unlikely to supplement what’s below, which came from decades of listening.

This list, containing songs that all came out when I was around my teens, is why I say that I lived through the best era of rock music in history. (Remember, this is only one out of ten pages.)

What Becomes of the Broken Hearted     Jimmy Ruffin
Ooo Baby Baby                                  Smokey Robinson
More Love                                          Smokey Robinson
Since I Lost My Baby                         Temptations
What’s Going On                                Marvin Gaye
This Old Heart of Mine                      Isley Brothers
Heat Wave                                          Martha and the Vandellas
Ask the Lonely                                   Four Tops
I Was Made to Love Her                    Stevie Wonder
Nowhere to Run                                  Martha and the Vandellas
I Can’t Help Myself                            Four Tops
Jimmy Mack                                       Martha and the Vandellas
When a Man Loves a Woman            Percy Sledge
Nothing But Heartaches                     Supremes
Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone       Bill Withers
Use Me                                               Bill Withers
Back in My Arms Again                    Supremes
Come and Get These Memories         Martha and the Vandellas
My Girl                                               Temptations
I’m Losing You                                   Temptations
Man’s World                                       James Brown
It’s the Same Old Song                       Four Tops
Just My Imagination                           Temptations
Georgia on My Mind                          Ray Charles
My Baby Must be a Magician            The Marvelettes
Heaven Must Have Sent You             The Elgins
Tell It Like It Is                                  Aaron Neville
What Does It Take (To Win Your Love)       Junior Walker and the All-Stars
1-2-3                                                   The Jackson 5
Everlasting Love                                 Carl Carlton
It’s a Shame                                        Spinners
Give Me Just a Little More Time       Chairman of the Board
Never Had a Dream Come True         Stevie Wonder
You Don’t Know Me                          Ray Charles
Try a Little Tenderness                      Otis Redding
Let’s Stay Together                            Al Green
(You Make Me Feel Like a) Natural Woman    Aretha Franklin
Too Busy Thinking About My Baby  Marvin Gaye
I Heard It Through the Grapevine      Marvin Gaye
You’re All I Need To Get By             Marvin Gaye/Tammi Terrell
If I Could Build My Whole World Around You        Marvin Gaye/Tammi Terrell
With This Ring                                   Platters
Too Late to Turn Back Now               Cornelius Bros. & Sister Rose
Joanna                                                 Kool and the Gang}
Stop (the Love You Save May Be Your Own)          Jackson 5
Could it be I’m Falling in Love          The Spinners
Oh, How Happy You Have Made Me            Shades of Blue
Use Me                                               Bill Withers
Chain Gang                                         Sam Cooke
Change Gonna Come                          Sam Cooke
Soul Man                                            Sam and Dave
Stoned Soul Picnic                             Fifth Dimension]
If Loving You is Wrong (I Don’t Wanna Be Right)  Luther Ingram\
Me and Mrs. Jones                              Billy Paul
Dock of the Bay                                  Otis Redding
Baby It’s You                                      Shirelles
My Guy                                               Mary Wells
Higher and Higher                              Jackie Wilson
People Get Ready (There’s a Train A’Coming)  Curtis Mayfield

To me, this song—performed live in France by the Four Tops—epitomizes soul. Look at the sweat pouring off Levi Stubbs!

Many people, including Paul McCartney, have said that the 1966 Beach Boys song “God Only Knows,” a product of Brian Wilson—with a bit of contribution from Tony Asher—is their favorite rock/pop song.

To wit:

Now I won’t beef about the grammatical error in the title (it should be “Only God Knows,” but that would mess up the rhythm), but I do agree that it’s in the top ten of rock songs. (For me, the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life” would probably be #1).  The words may be a bit puerile—just another testimony to undying love—but that’s not why the song is famous. It’s the tune and, above all, the vocal embellishments and the complex melody, that makes this song so great.  If you don’t mind a bit of arcane music analysis, here’s Rick Beato in a recent video calling “God Only Knows” the “perfect song.”  And even if you’re not into Beato’s analysis of melody, you can’t help but see from his analysis how unusual and inventive Wilson’s melody was. Wilson spent days perfecting the song and its recording.

You can see how energized Beato is when he listens to the song and discusses its chords and notes.

Below is the final product as released on the immortal album Pet Sounds (have a look at its lineup of songs at the previous link). There’s a great live performance, with Carl Wilson singing lead (as he did on the record), here. But first, a few words from the Wikipedia entry:

Written by Brian Wilson and Tony Asher, it is a baroque-style love song distinguished for its harmonic innovation and complexity, unusual instrumentation, and subversion of typical popular music conventions, both lyrically and musically. It is often praised as one of the greatest songs of all time and as the Beach Boys’ finest record.

The song’s musical sophistication is demonstrated by its three contrapuntal vocal parts and weak tonal center (competing between the keys of E and A). Lyrically, the words are expressed from the perspective of a narrator who asserts that life without their lover could only be fathomed by God—an entity that had been considered taboo to name in the title or lyric of a pop song. It marked a departure for Wilson, who attributed the impetus for the song to Asher’s affinity for standards such as “Stella by Starlight“. Some commentators interpret “God Only Knows” as promoting suicidal ideations, although such an interpretation was not intended by the songwriters. Others have compared the song’s advanced harmonic structure to the work of classical composers such as Delibes, Bach, and Stravinsky.

Wilson produced the record between March and April 1966, enlisting about 20 session musicians who variously played drums, sleigh bells, plastic orange juice cups, clarinets, flutes, strings, French horn, accordion, guitars, upright bass, harpsichord, and a tack piano with its strings taped. His brother Carl Wilson sang lead, a vocal performance that became regarded as Carl’s best ever, with Brian himself and Bruce Johnston providing additional harmonies. The song ends with a series of repeating vocal rounds, another device that was uncommon for popular music of the era.

The released version (official video), three minutes of musical genius.  The video apparently shows two high-school lovers with one about to go off to college.

I’ve previously posted the video below, but wanted to show it again it again because it documents another connection between the Beatles and “God Only Knows”: George Martin (“The Fifth Beatle”) goes to visit Brian Wilson at his home, and they discuss the song at length, later repairing to the studio where Martin fiddles with the original tapes. It’s five minutes well spent.

Finally, two videos documenting the production of this song in the studio. Both show Wilson’s perfectionism.

Now if you have a different “perfect song” (and “perfect” is subject to different interpretations), please name it below. In lieu of that, give us your favorite song, which may or may not be ‘perfect.”  Picking one off the top of my head, I’d say the Beatles’ “In My Life” comes close to perfection (original here). The lovely baroque bridge was written and performed by George Martin.

Watching YouTube the other night, the site thrust me down the rabbit hole of Danny Kaye videos, and I discovered (or had forgotten) what a polymathic talent Kaye was: a great singer, dancer, comedian, actor, and improviser.  And although Kaye didn’t play an instrument, he was similar to Louis Armstrong in being beloved, a great improviser, and a great scat singer (listen to Danny Kaye sing Dinah, especially after  2:09).  It’s a pity that, to capture all of America as his audience, Armstrong became somewhat of a “mascot” or a “clown”, when in fact he was perhaps the greatest jazz innovator of the 20th century. (Listen to Potato Head Blues from 1927, which to me is the very first jazz solo improvisation. I think it was Woody Allen who, in his movie “Manhattan,” called Potato Head Blues one of the things that made live worth living.)

At any rate, it was a real treat to find Satchmo and Danny Kaye together on ‘The Danny Kaye Show” (January 4th, 1967), singing “When the Saints Go Marching In.” What a great combination of singing, playing, and horsing around, with both voices meshing perfectly!  (Kaye’s imitation of Armstrong is a hoot.)

I sent this to a friend, who told me to watch it again and pay attention to the body language. His point was that Kaye, in defiance of what white America considered acceptable at the time, was touchy-feely with Armstrong, patting him on the belly, putting his arm around him and showing in every way that a white guy could be friends with a black guy. (Kaye, by the way, was Jewish, born David Daniel Kaminsky in Brooklyn; and Armstrong, partly raised by a white Jewish family who bought him his first trumpet, was a great friend of the Jews, and often wore a Star of David.)

In this video, Armstrong is not as “handsy” as Kaye, and my friend and I discussed whether it was considered uncouth for a black guy to put his arm around a white guy (they do slap each other’s hands). An alternative theory, which is mine, is that Armstrong simply was less touchy-feely than Kaye.  To test this, you’d have to look for duets of Armstrong with another black performer, but I’ll leave it to readers to do that. However, there’s another way to test this theory, which is to watch the duet in the second video. But don’t miss this first one!

The second test involves Louis playing a duet with another white man, but a closer friend: Jack Teagarden, a superb jazz trombonist who played with Lous Armstrong’s All-Stars for five years.  This video apparently came from the movie “Jazz on a Summer’s Day” (1959), and features one of their classic, laid-back duets, “Old Rockin’ Chair.”

Teagarden was known for his complete lack of racism, and, as Wikipedia notes, “Growing up in an area with a large Black population, Teagarden developed an appreciation for Black music, especially blues and gospel, and was one of the first jazz musicians to incorporate blue notes into his playing.”

Does Satchmo touch Jack more than he did Danny Kaye?  In the video, Teagarden puts his arm around Armstrong, just as Kaye did, but Armstrong again isn’t very touchy, though he does rest his head on Teagarden’s chest near the end.  So my hypothesis remains untested, but the highlight of this post is not racism in America but the music. Listen and enjoy!

The YouTube notes from the video above:

Here is Louis Armstrong on trumpet & vocal, Bobby Hackett, one of the best cornet players in the world, Jack Teagarden on trombone & vocals, Peanuts Hucko on clarinet with Marty Napoleon, piano, Arvell Shaw on bass & Cozy Cole on drums in New York, on December 30, 1957.