(Untitled)

[moominmolly]

There is a bucket which contains Cole Porter's "Every Time We Say Goodbye" ("but how strange the change from major to minor") and Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" ("it goes like this, the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall and the major lift"). What else is in this bucket?

Yelling "GUITAR SOLO!" just before a guitar solo does not count.

Comments

[justinjs]

Perhaps hanging over the edge of that bucket: Bela Fleck and the Flecktones' "UFO TOFU"

[moominmolly]

I don't know the song -- what happens?

[justinjs]

The song is a musical palindrome. It has subsets of itself which are also palindromes. It has no vocals, so the title is as close to an announcement of its musical features as it can get.

IIRC it also has some very fast segments with banjo and piano matching each other note for note, which has nothing to do with its "UFO TOFU" nature but is tricky and cool.

[moominmolly]

Oh, beautiful! Yes, that would be on the edge of the bucket, but still. Neat!

[youngwilliam]

Ai, I want to say there's some Michael Penn song off of one of his first three albums, but I'm not recalling which one (or if I'm lying).

[moominmolly]

Oh, I was so hoping you'd have an answer! :)

[youngwilliam]

As was (and am) I! That whole "citing the structure of music to work as a metaphor for the conceptual aspect of the song-plot" thing is just so Michael Penn/David Byrne/They Might Be Giants/Rufus Wainwright/etc.. (as well as Mr.Porter and Mr.Cohen). AKA: Will Music.

[vespid_interest]

Maybe TMBG's "Violin" with a violin playing and the lyric "violin-lin-lin." There are a lot of songs about instruments, TMBG has more and the Beatles have "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." But these don't seem to fit exactly, and if you were to start including songs that are about how awesome rock 'n roll is then you'd meander forever.

I bet a ton of rap songs would begrudgingly qualify but that feels like cheating.

How about that "do, a deer" song from "The Sound of Music"?

[on_reserve]

The John Cale cover of Hallelujah?

[cuthalion]

Susanna & The Magical Orchestra's cover too.

[gravitrue]

don't go too crazy here; I've got at least 35 recordings of this by different artists.

[keyne]

THIRTY-FIVE? Wow, I have four and I thought I'd gotten most of 'em. :}

[enf]

Only a Northern Song (the Beatles)?

[surrealestate]

Hmm. DaVinci's Notebook's Title of the Song? "Modulation and I hold the high nooooooooooooooooooote"

Led Zeppelin's The Crunge, "Where's the confounded bridge?"

I know others, but they aren't coming to mind right now.

(I'm going to assume that the many covers of Hallelujah are not interesting to you in this context.)

[pseydtonne]

There's also Camper Van Beethoven's "Joe Stalin's Cadillac", which makes allusions to the same part of that Led Zepellin song at the end. "Where's the bridge? Has anybody seen the bridge?"

[gravitrue]

I think Title of the Song is a different bucket.
It's the "self-referential lyrics" bucket, but not the "musically self-referential lyrics" bucket.

And also in that bucket is Rough Draft by Einstein's Little Homunculus.
And My Dinner with Laurie by Honest Bob and the Factory-to-Dealer Incentives.

"Can't we have a normal conversation?"
"This isn't a normal conversation, this is your song."
"Whoa"

Oh, for the musically self-referential lyrics bucket, perhaps:
Metal By Numbers
and Earache My Eye by Cheech and Chong ("I only know three chords")

And maybe also Dan Bern's Talkin Alien Abduction BluesAliens: "now we're lookin at your brain you see

[gravitrue]

Oh, wait, no you're right; the modulation bit from Title of the Song should count, I think.

Also Folk Song by Uncle Bonsai. First two verses:
Take an E chord
Then an A chord
Then an E chord
Then a B (with a seventh)
Take an E chord
Then an A chord
E's a very
Special key

If an E chord's
Used with caring
It can lead towards
Something rare
'Cause an E chord's
Never daring
No an E chord's
Always fair