OK -- the setup for today's quiz is a little lengthy, but by gum-arabic it's worth the trip. And if it's all too much more boring even than usual, why not skip on down to the free-for-all coda (about codas) below?
Roland Lawrence LaPrise, born in 1912, was granted the copyright to a composition that he and his his Sun Valley, Idaho-based band The Ram Trio, played for the entertainment of the ski-lodge crowd there in the late 1940s. In the mid-1950s, it became a nationwide sensation when it appeared as the B-side of another hit by Ray Anthony's big band.
The original act of creation that brought the hit to light is, however, in some dispute. The British songwriter Jimmy Kennedy claimed to have written a nearly identical song during World War II. Laprise was later sued by another man who claimed a 1946 authorship, and they settled out of court.
Finally, lyrics to a very similar song -- with a somewhat different title -- also appear in the 1940 anthology of Shaker folk culture, A Gift to Be Simple.
What was the title of LaPrise's hit song? For a bonus point, name the hit on the other side of the Ray Anthony single mentioned above. For double bonus points and the admiration of all, name the hit song Jimmy Kennedy wrote that was inspired by a holiday picture postcard he received.
First correct answer posted to comments wins a rare, slightly foxed copy of Selected Works of Deep Purple as Transcribed for the Concertina (missing the last page of "Smoke on the Water", but once you get that far you can pretty much work out the rest of it, I think). No Googling or doing Flowers for Algernon-like experiments on your child's hamster in the hopes of breeding a superintelligent hamster equipped to help you answer this question. It's been tried. Anyway, one guess per comment but go wild with the comments.
THE CODA: So, a recent re-listen to the New Pornographers Twin Cinema prompted me to realize how commonly (and I think, pleasingly), they employ codas to their songs. Some (as in their very first single "Mass Romantic") have a line or two of vocals, often repeated, as if a second chorus. Others (see "Miss Teen Wordpower" on The Electric Version) are instrumentals.
This got me thinking about codas in rock/pop in general. Excluding straightforward rave-up endings (which don't always employ or introduce a new musical theme), how common are they? I think they're rare, but perhaps I'm overlooking many examples. I can only think of a few off of the top of my head: Lou Reed's "Satellite of Love", Led Zeppelin's "Fool in the Rain" (which almost seems too close to just an extension of the chorus) and maybe Rush's "Spirit of Radio" with its little "Sounds of Silence" parody tacked onto the end.
What am I missing? Feel free to mix the coda-suggestions in with the quiz answers. I'm feeling anarchic.
Posted by BT at November 11, 2005 08:15 AMSilver Bells.
Posted by: BoxJam on November 11, 2005 09:42 AMWhen Johnny Comes Marching Home Again
Posted by: BoxJam on November 11, 2005 09:46 AMHurrah
Posted by: boxjam on November 11, 2005 09:47 AMHurrah
Posted by: boxjam on November 11, 2005 09:48 AMNope.
Not, incidentally, a holiday tune.
Posted by: BT on November 11, 2005 10:19 AMI love codas! I've made mix cds full of 'em. (Songs with codas, not just the codas themselves.) I think they're more common in pop songs than rock, which tends toward a simpler structure. I especially love really long codas, of which "Hey Jude" and "Layla" are the obvious examples. A couple of amazing alt-rock codas that are really the heart of the song: Shudder to Think's "X-French T Shirt" and Heavy Vegetable's "Going Steady with the Limes".
A few codas that I think are great, trying to restrict myself to stuff not too obscure:
XTC, "Earn Enough for Us" (also, on the same album, "The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul") (very short codas)
the Beatles, "Hello Goodbye" (and many others)
the Pixies, "Alec Eiffel"
geez, where are my coda mixes? Off to hunt.
Posted by: Scraps on November 11, 2005 11:41 AMMares Eat Oats
Posted by: boxjam on November 11, 2005 12:31 PMDoin' da Butt
Posted by: Scott on November 11, 2005 02:05 PM(Which I think is funny both from the Shaker and greeting card angles.)
Posted by: Scott on November 11, 2005 02:17 PMNothing yet. I'm tempted to start clue-ifying, but won't until at least 3:30, I think.
Scraps, thanks for that -- I knew there were some obvious ones I wasn't able to think of.
Speaking of XTC, I guess I would call the end of "Towers of London" a coda ("Lon-don-don-diddy-a-uh!"), with the caveat that it repeats the guitar figure that underlies the rest of the song. "Earn Enough for Us" is a very short coda indeed, but I guess I would include it.
As for the Beatles, off the top of my head I can think of "Lovely Rita," and "All You Need is Love" (sort of). And in a way, side 2 of "Abbey Road" seems like a bunch of codas.
Also, "I Got Life" from Hair.
Posted by: BT on November 11, 2005 02:20 PM
Does "The Question" by the Moody Blues count?
Posted by: BT on November 11, 2005 02:22 PMOh, and Duran Duran's "Rio", of course.
Posted by: BT on November 11, 2005 02:29 PMOK, cluesville it is.
Two words: dance craze. Oh, and you've done it. For sure.
Posted by: BT on November 11, 2005 03:57 PMThe Hokey Pokey? That's about the only recognizable, nameable dance I've likely ever performed.
Posted by: Scott on November 11, 2005 04:10 PMAlthough I may have done the Humpty Dance, since, as Humpty himself says "you've got it down/when you look like you're in pain."
Posted by: Scott on November 11, 2005 04:11 PMThe Freak.
Posted by: boxjam on November 11, 2005 05:22 PMJitterbug? but what's the song?
There's a Shaker Village in my folks' town (Canterbury NH)--dancing may be illegal (as are other activities for which dancing might be a euphemism).
Posted by: art on November 11, 2005 08:11 PMof course if we want to talk 50s, then I might as well nominate "The Twist" but wherefore art thou Chubby?
By communing with my Shaker & Quaker past, I suggest "Lord of the Dance"
Posted by: art on November 11, 2005 08:16 PMWas the song "Brazil"? (And the dance one of those latin ones, like the rhumba or the samba?) Lots of shaking in those (if I have to make a tie in).
Posted by: art on November 11, 2005 08:23 PMbop? bunny hop? snowflake shuffle? poodle skirt parade? I know the name of the movie that plays every afternoon at the Sun Valley theater, does that count?
Posted by: karen on November 11, 2005 10:26 PMAnother great long coda: Talking Heads' "Found a Job" (also, "Memories Can't Wait").
Not sure whether the beautiful ending of 10cc's "The Things We Do for Love" counts; it's tagged on to the end of the song like a coda, but it consists of variations on the last couple lines of the verse part, so maybe it isn't technically a coda.
Posted by: Scraps on November 12, 2005 02:33 PMSorry for the long delay in answering -- it's been a busy weekend and we're trying to solve the computer woes hereabouts.
Scott shakes it all about and comes up a winner with "The Hokey Pokey," almost certainly, according to my sources, having something in common both with Jimmy Kennedy's "Hokey Cokey" and the Shaker song "Hinkum-Booby" which has, not inappropriately, shaking.
And we credit Karen with a bonus point for mentioning the Bunny Hop -- that was the dance hit for Ray Anthony, for which The Hokey Pokey was the B-side.
No one's tried to answer our question about Jimmy Kennedy's postcard-inspired composition, so we'll spill it: "South of the Border," inspired by a card from sunny Tijuana.
More codas! More codas!
Posted by: BT on November 13, 2005 09:25 PMDoes it count if you glue another song onto the first? In an extended remix?
Soft Cell
Tainted Love/Baby Where Did Our Love Go?
I feel like it doesn't count as a coda if the entire song is a suite of different melodic sections a la Paul McCartney ("Band on the Run" or side two of Abbey Road) or Yes. Although that's clearly cousin to the coda.
At any rate: the Beastie Boys' "The New Style" has a good coda.
Posted by: Gavin in NZ on November 17, 2005 10:21 PMAgreed, Gavin - I wouldn't say that side two of Abbey Road is a collection of codas. It's more that much of it sounds like the kind of music that you'd expect to find in a coda. And "Her Majesty" does in fact seem particularly like a coda. Or a tag. It has that "little bit of extra" quality.
But I agree that the whole McCartney medley-song oevre should probably be ruled out, along with any prog-rock epic that lists its sections in roman numerals.
Posted by: BT on November 18, 2005 09:50 AM