Music throwback: The Air That I Breathe

This, of course, rekindles that unanswerable question of where to draw the line between homage and theft.

I was a pretty big fan of the British pop group the Hollies early on – Bus Stop, On A Carousel – before Graham Nash left in 1968 to join some trio, and sometimes quartet. I was less interested in the post-Nash hits, such as He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother.

Still, The Air that I Breathe, a gold single that went to #6 on the US Billboard charts in 1974, has those trademark lovely harmony vocals. It was so infectious that the the British rock band Radiohead decided to “borrow” a good chunk of it for Creep, their Top 40 single from 1993.

In 2013, TIME magazine pointed out 11 Suspiciously Sound-Alike Songs and this pairing was on the list. Listen to the Creep & The Air That I Breathe Mashup.

As the Wikipedia notes: “Creep shares a chord progression and melody with The Air That I Breathe… The song’s writers Albert Hammond and Mike Hazlewood sued and received co-writing credits and a percentage of the song’s royalties. According to Hammond, Radiohead agreed that they had actually taken it … Because they were honest they weren’t sued to the point of saying ‘we want the whole thing’. So we ended up just getting a little piece of it.”

Listen to The Air That I Breathe (original) – Albert Hammond (1972).

So I was incredulous when I read that Radiohead is suing American singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey for… guess what?… copyright infringement, suggesting that her track Get Free from her most recent album, Lust for Life (2017) was copied from Creep.

This, of course, rekindles that unanswerable question of where to draw the line between homage and theft. I think Get Free sounds less like Creep than Creep sounds like The Air That I Breathe, especially the Hammond version. Presumably, if the Radiohead wins the suit, Hammond and Hazlewood would also profit.

Del Ray tweeted on January 7: “It’s true about the lawsuit. Although I know my song wasn’t inspired by Creep, Radiohead feel it was and want 100% of the publishing – I offered up to 40 over the last few months but they will only accept 100. Their lawyers have been relentless, so we will deal with it in court.”

Seems that Radiohead is being creepy about this.

Musical throwback: No More by Elvis Presley

It is, “together with Yesterday by The Beatles,… one of the most recorded songs in the history of music.”

One of my work colleagues had this Elvis Presley video which I couldn’t identify, though it looked as though it was from one of his movies, none of which I’ve ever seen. Yet the tune was irritatingly familiar. Dustbury identified the video as No More from the soundtrack to Blue Hawaii.

That made sense, he noted, because it came out right after Elvis had an enormous hit with It’s Now or Never, an English rewrite of O Sole Mio, the “globally known Neapolitan song written in 1898.” Its lyrics were written by Giovanni Capurro and the music was composed by Eduardo di Capua. Aaron Schroeder, Wally Gold, and di Capua are credited on It’s Now or Never.

Here are a few examples of when Elvis borrowed from classical music; compare and contrast.

Don Robertson, credited as the co-composer of No More with Hal Blair, said he based it on the Italian tune La Paloma. But in fact Sebastián Yradier was a Spanish Basque composer who wrote this habanera around 1860 after a visit to Cuba. It is, “together with Yesterday by The Beatles,… one of the most recorded songs in the history of music.”

From this list of Elvis songs, I checked who was cited for writing Love Me Tender, since it was based on what I thought was an old folk tune, Aura Lee. It’s credited to Elvis Presley; Vera Matson (pseudonym of Ken Darby, uncredited – what’s THAT all about?); and George R. Poulton (1828–1867), who was “a musician and composer, best known for composing the tune to Aura Lea.” (I’ve seen it spelled both ways.)

Of course, Aura Lee has often been rewritten. When we were kids, the lyrics were:
If you must take medicine
Take it orally
That’s because the other way
Is more painfully

Listen to
No More – Elvis Presley here (the video I saw, unlabeled) or here
La Paloma – Plácido Domingo here
La Paloma – Julio Iglesias here

Love Me Tender – Elvis Presley here
Aura Lee – A Cappella Trudbol here
Aura Lee- Jim Reeves here
Aura Lee – 97th Regimental String Band here

Music throwback: We’ll Meet Again

The Daughter was singing We’ll Meet Again. I asked her how the heck did she know that song, which first came out long before I was born?

She was watching a video called Film Theory: Gravity Falls ISN’T OVER! (Bill Cipher LIVES!) Gravity Falls is an animated TV series that ended a couple years ago. There’s a reference to We’ll Meet Again by Vera Lynn at the 9:00 mark.

Then The Daughter tested me to come up with the songwriter – not that she knew herself, mind you. Not only did I not know, none of my choir buddies did, though we guessed a lot of the likely suspects.

It turns out that it was written by Ross Parker and Hughie Charles, who also wrote “There’ll Always Be an England.”

The singer most associated with the tune is Lynn who turned 100 on March 20, 2017 and is still alive, I believe. She was described as England’s most popular singer during World War II, and she appeared on British TV for many years.

From the Wikipedia:
The song gave its name to the 1943 musical film… in which Dame Vera Lynn played the lead role. Lynn’s recording was used in the closing scenes of the 1986 BBC television serial The Singing Detective. British director John Schlesinger used the song in his 1979 World War II film, Yanks, which is about British citizens and American soldiers during the military buildup in the UK as the Allies prepared for the D-Day Invasion…

Lynn sang the song in London on the 60th Anniversary of VE Day in 2005.

Pink Floyd makes reference to this song and the performer in Vera, a song from their album The Wall: “Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn?/Remember how she said that we would meet again some sunny day?”

Listen to We’ll Meet Again (chart action from US Billboard singles chart):

Vera Lynn, #29 in 1954

Kay Kyser, Ginny Simms, Harry Babbitt, and ensemble vocal, #24 in 1941

Guy Lombardo, #24 in 1941

Benny Goodman with Peggy Lee, #16 in 1942

The Ink Spots, 1949

Frank Sinatra, 1962

The Byrds, closing track of their debut album in 1965, inspired by the Lynn version’s use in the film Dr. Strangelove

Johnny Cash, closing track on his 2002 album American IV: The Man Comes Around, the final album released during his lifetime

She and Him, 2014

End of year rambling: who ARE these people?

The year’s worst falsehoods and bogus claims

Is God a Robot That Just Hasn’t Been Invented Yet?

Hating the poor in the season of giving

How to Hire Fake Friends and Family

Fiction from the New Yorker: Cat Person

Thousands Once Spoke His Language in the Amazon; Now, He’s the Only One

How ancient mastodon bones sparked a modern-day battle among scientists

Chuck Miller: When I caught the Times Union editing my blog headlines without my permission

RIP, Sue Grafton at 77 – Y Is For Yesterday: her last mystery series novel

Arthur answers Roger’s questions about the regime in DC and the nasty people in DC and blogging, and Kiwi language and his most evergreen post

RIP to Rose Marie, who was of an uncertain age; at least she was around for this; Dick Van Dyke has lost two costars this year, with Mary Tyler Moore passing in January

2018 US postage stamps: Musician John Lennon, performer and activist Lena Horne, America’s first woman in space Sally Ride, and children’s television pioneer Mr. Rogers

Mark Evanier has been blogging for 17 years this month, a site I check out daily

RIP Dick Enberg

Clifford Irving, Author of a Notorious Literary Hoax, Dies at 87

Quotable Kirby

Erie, PA Receives Record 53 Inches of Snow in 30 Hours

Now I Know: The People Who Protect Chewbacca and The Worthless $65 Million Masterpiece That Cost $29 Million and The Town That Pays Criminals to Cut it Out and The Accidental Masterpiece and The New York Police Department’s Giant Problem and The People Who Protect Chewbacca

What is it like to go through a car wash with the windows down?

Wise Old Sayings

TICKS, MANY OF THEM

What Do You Call a World That Can’t Learn From Itself?

This is the thanks he gets for “overhauling” the American tax system?

‘He Would Probably Be a Dictator by Now’

The Nationalist’s Delusion

The United States of America Is Decadent and Depraved

Should We Care What Happens to the GOP’s Soul?

I Won’t Tolerate A ‘Different Viewpoint’ When It’s Based On Blatant Lies

The Whoppers of 2017: the year’s worst falsehoods and bogus claims

“Neoliberalism” isn’t an empty epithet – It’s a real, powerful set of ideas

How life is now in Puerto Rico

“Hope has two beautiful daughters: their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.” – Augustine of Hippo

TWENTY-SEVENTEEN

The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2017 and 1957

2017 is the best?

Instagram’s Favorite New Yorker Cartoons of 2017

YouTube’s highest paid stars – who ARE these people? I’m old

The Biggest Tech Fails of 2017

Turner Classic Movies’ annual Obituary Video

The Daily Show team looks back at the biggest events of 2017 in news, sports, and pop culture

MUSIC

RIP Keely Smith

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised – Gil Scott Heron

Keep On Doing What You’re Doing/Jerks On The Loose – Kelly Hogan and Nora O’Connor

Two songs from Björk’s 2017 album Utopia

Dmitri Shostakovich – Waltz No. 2

Regretro -Lifestyle album

The Last Day of Summer – Elyxr, ft Color Theory

Retrospect -Freen in Green, ft. Liz Enthusiasm

Heavensent – Bao

TWO TICKET TO PHUKET

Sufjan Stevens, Chris Cornell, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Taylor Swift on longlist for Best Original Song Oscar

Dominic Frontiere, Composer for ‘The Outer Limits,’ ‘The Flying Nun,’ Dies at 86

Music throwback Christmas all over again

Here’s a great thing about when someone puts labels on posts on the Blogger platform: you can access Jaquandor’s Daily Dose of Christmas, not just for this year, but for several years back. You’re welcome.

A couple new tracks from this year:

Indigo Christmas -Theresa Olin, written by Linda Bonney Olin

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas – MonaLisa Twins

Away in a Manger – Pentatonix

You Ain’t Gettin’ S#!t (For Xmas) – Emily “Boo Boo” Miller

Some random older cuts I’ve come across:

Christmas Rappin’- Kurtis Blow, 1979

The Christians and The Pagans – Dar Williams

Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) – Darlene Love, from her recurring appearances on The Late Show with David Letterman

We Need A Little Christmas – Angela Lansbury, from the Broadway musical MAME

Winter Song – Sara Bareilles, Ingrid Michaelson

Chrissy The Christmas Mouse – Debbie Reynolds and Donald O’Connor

The 12 Gifts of Christmas – Allan Sherman

You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch

A Shadows of Knight mashup of a Christmas carol and a Dave Brubeck hit

Shepherd’s Hey by Percy Grainger, which I have on some holiday record or other

Plus: Coverville 1197: The 2017 Christmas Cover Show

Finally, some tunes I tend to play every year:

Every Valley – Handel’s Messiah, A Soulful Celebration; it was such a great surprise

The Christmas Song – Nat King Cole; my late mom was a huge fan of Nat

White Christmas – the Drifters; not just the song but this particular animation I love

Linus and Lucy – Vince Guaraldi, from a Charlie Brown Christmas

The Coventry Carol – Alison Moyet, from the very first A Very Special Christmas album in 1987

Christmas All Over Again – Tom Petty, from the second A Very Special Christmas album in 1992; I can’t believe he’s gone

Winter Snow – Booker T. and the MG’S (at 2:30) – Silver Bells is OK, but Winter Snow, which I first head on that first Stax-Volt box set, really gets to me

What Christmas Means To Me – Stevie Wonder; there are quite a few Motown Christmas albums and this is my favorite cut, the last song on the Someday at Christmas album from 1967

The Bells of Christmas -Julie Andrews; the version I have on vinyl skips the unnecessary instrumentation from about 1:08 to 2:02, which appeared on an album from Firestone tires in the 1960s. Oh, here it is at 17:05

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