Day #16 of the 30 Day Music Meme

[shadowkat]

Day #16 of the 30 Day Music Meme - A Song That Is a Classic Favorite.

I figure anything by this band would be a classic, right? At any rate this is my favorite song by this specific British Rock Band. I first heard the song in the film Full Metal Jacket - but alas it was NOT on the soundtrack, also heard it as the theme song of the television series Tour of Duty. But to get it I had to hunt for the right album.

Here's the band singing it live in 1966, around the time it was first released.

Watch on YouTube

Here's the band singing it in 2006.



""Paint It Black" (originally released as "Paint It, Black") is a song by the English rock band the Rolling Stones. Jointly credited to the songwriting partnership of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, it was first released as a single on 7 May 1966, and later included as the opening track to the US version of their 1966 album Aftermath.[6]

"Paint It Black" reached number one in both the Billboard Hot 100 and the UK Singles Chart. The song became the Rolling Stones' third number-one hit single in the US and sixth in the UK.[7][8] Since its initial release, the song has remained influential as the first number-one hit featuring a sitar, particularly in the UK, where it has charted on two other occasions, and has been the subject of multiple cover versions, compilation albums and film appearances.[9]

It is one of their most popular songs, and it is on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list. It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2018, and it is the 79th best ranked song on critics' all-time lists according to Acclaimed Music."


I find the song haunting.

Comments

[cjlasky7]

The Roches, "The Hallelujah Chorus"

I've said in the past that The Roches were a special part of my life. Their third album, "Keep on Doing" (produced by King Crimson's Robert Fripp) was the first record I reviewed for my college newspaper. I went to their Carnegie Hall concert that year, where the sisters were handing out commemorative buttons at the door.

Through the Roches, my tastes broadened out to American folk music, then to blues and British folk music. I wouldn't have gone to England and the Cropredy folk festival if they hadn't shown me the way.

I saw them in concert many times, including an appearance at the Fast Folk festival, where they performed Jack Hardy's "Before You Sing" in elaborate costumes that looked like they were pulled from Celtic myth.

(I also somehow wound up in their brother David's basement studio in Brooklyn, contributing background vocals to a song protesting the Colts moving to Indianapolis.)

I have an autographed copy of their first album. It may be buried with me.

So for Terre, Suzzy and dear Maggie (sadly gone), their version of Handl's Hallelujah Chorus. Three part harmony. A capella. No net. A classic in every sense of the word.

https://youtu.be/LTcw6E4FsO8

[shadowkat]

Interesting. I never knew they existed until Wendahl posted. Thanks for the rec.

[atpo_onm]

Have to thank cjl and his post about The Roches, what they meant to him, how from their music he branched out into the appreciation of so many other artists.

I didn't truly appreciate them, by the way-- liked them, don't get me wrong, but for some reason they just never fully gelled for me on record. Then they showed up right here in town, and I got a chance to see them live, and...

... dude, are you ever right on about how awesome they are. I was right, capturing what they do on a record... very, very challenging.

But what cjl did was not just make me think about which of dozens of "classics" I could choose from, but-- what choice would represent a musical influence, a style, what have you-- that was formative in my future choices of artists and their work.

That easily narrows it to a single album, and of all the songs on that album, the one that still can bring me to tears just hearing it. It was strange how at the time this record was regarded as "pretentious", or how ridiculous it was for a supposed rock band to implement such classical-heavy features into their tunes.

History proved those doubters to be clueless to true musical innovation. Today, blessedly, many young musicians freely blend all manner of genres into their compositions, and not only do listeners not question this, nearly all happily embrace it.

This is a very lovely live version of this stunning song, and it does my old heart good to see all those other geezers and geezerettes in the audience totally wrapped up in the moment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjUqfRrWwcM

Letters I've written / Never meaning to send

[shadowkat]

I love The Moody Blues - Nights in White Satin. My brother introduced them to me - he put their song on a mixed tape that he sent me in college. He used to make collages out of various magazine covers to create his own cassette album design - then he'd put together a cassette of songs he thought I'd love. It's how I became introduced to Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Moody Blues, Kate Bush, the Fuggees, Peter Gabriele. In fact this song was on a mixed tape that included Pink Floyd's Albatross Echoes, Peter Gabriel's Biko and his duet with Kate Bush - Don't Give Up, one of Bush's songs. We played it endlessly as we toured England during a break - when I was over there one summer studying theater.

I didn't truly appreciate them, by the way-- liked them, don't get me wrong, but for some reason they just never fully gelled for me on record. Then they showed up right here in town, and I got a chance to see them live, and...

... dude, are you ever right on about how awesome they are. I was right, capturing what they do on a record... very, very challenging.

Hmmm. I've never heard The Roches live. Just the song wendahl posted and cjl did, and honestly the appeal is lost on me. I do not understand why both people love them. They sound horrible. It may be that I'm listening to them via youtube on my laptop, and it's more than possible that youtube on my laptop isn't picking up the bass correctly or something. Actually this is true about music - often a recording or the device in which you are listening to a recording on can make all the difference.

I had a boyfriend in college who used to swear that CD's had better sound quality than cassettes and records. Actually he felt they had a far better quality than vinyl. Now, of course, he's saying the opposite - which amuses me to no end.
But he did have a valid point. And with my television - it has various audio modes, speech, normal, theater, bass, music - and it does make a difference in sound. And I've been advised to get a sound buffer for better sound - but I live in a small apartment, and the last thing I need is to be blasting sound.

My brother is looking into a better sound system for me - he's a believer in quality sound. And has wired his house finally with a top of the line sound system. I have Bose noise cancelling earphones and the sound quality is admittedly better on those.
Human voices on "youtube" via my computer lack a certain cadence. So anything sung a capella - if it's not tenor or alto, sounds pitchy. Also, add to this? I don't tend to like high soprano or high pitched sounds.

So...I may pull the Roches and Betty Davis (dlgood's nomination in another post) along with Cowboy Junkies (beergoodfoamy's rec) up on my phone and play them through the earphones. I already love Davis and Junkies, but maybe I'll change my mind about the Roches - who knows? But they sound like crap on my lap-top.

[atpo_onm]

And I've been advised to get a sound buffer for better sound - but I live in a small apartment, and the last thing I need is to be blasting sound.

I live in a house, but it's a duplex, with a next-door neighbor one wall away. And while it's a fairly thick brick wall, it still means I can't just crank the volume whenever I want to. Your sitch is more difficult to deal with. But... a very key point which is one familiar to audiophiles, but rarely to most normal people:

It's not about volume, it's about accuracy. A quality audio playback system-- source component, control circuits, amplification, speakers-- takes the source and reproduces it as accurately as possible in your listening space (which can be headphones, BTW.)

I have Bose noise cancelling earphones and the sound quality is admittedly better on those.

Doesn't surprise me, if your other sources are your computer or your TV set. Either of those are traditionally mediocre to poor at accurate audio reproduction. Your computer can be accurate, but only with a number of caveats thrown in.

Human voices on "youtube" via my computer lack a certain cadence. So anything sung acapella - if it's not tenor or alto, sounds pitchy.

Won't go into any technical details about this, but your observations are not uncommon.

Also, add to this? I don't tend to like high soprano or high pitched sounds.

While this could be a physical situation with your ears-- I had several customers with this condition-- the more likely explanation is simple distortion. The biggest culprit for that? Poor quality speakers. One of the most difficult tasks I had with selling customers systems was to get them to spend about half of whatever they were willing to invest (in the system) in the speakers.

Modern electronics can produce quality sound at very modest prices. That isn't true for speakers. Additionally, the acoustics of your listening room play a big part in the overall sound quality. It is possible to get quality speakers which interact poorly with a given room. The store I worked for always allowed a customer to exchange a speaker pair for a different model if their first choice did not sound as good in their home as it did on our showroom floor.

Lastly (for now, anyway!) I'm not sure what you mean by a "buffer", but if it's what's called a "sound bar" for your TV, that might be a very good idea. Your brother can advise you if he's up on current tech, which it sounds like he may be. TV speakers in modern flat-panels are almost universally terrible sound-wise, and I do mean terrible, I'm not exaggerating for effect.

[shadowkat]

I was talking about a "sound bar". The television isn't enough of a problem to motivate me. It's just hard to make out dialogue at times.

The earphones, for reasons I'm not techy enough to understand, will only hook up with the phone. I've tried to get them to hook up with the computer and the television, no go.

[cjlasky7]

Thank you. I agree that just about everybody has a linchpin artist, someone who expands their idea of what great music can be.

The Roches just happen to be mine. But you know what? The Moody Blues could just as easily fit that definition. "Days of Future Past" was probably the album that turned me into a "prog head." I expanded out to Yes, ELP, ELO (when I needed some pop with my prog)--but I stuck with the Moodys all through their classic period and beyond. The Long Distance Voyager tour was one of my first concerts!

Recommended for Moody Blues Virgins: DoFP (of course), Seventh Sojourn, In Search of the Lost Chord

Also recommended: Justin Hayward and John Lodge's "Blue Jays"

One last word on The Roches: their studio output could be erratic, but that first Warners album is a stone cold classic, and "A Dove" (from their MCA years) is endlessly listenable. I also think that the pre-Suzzy "Seductive Reasoning" has some of Maggie's best songs. I go back to that one a lot.