Two years ago while Lesley and I were perusing the wares at Anthropology at the Gateway Mall(love that Anthropology even though there's nothing there for me, it's so pleasant and hoity-toity). A song came on over the PA system that blew our minds. It sounded like a mix of Ben Folds and ELO, one of those songs that sounds old other than the high production value and clarity that's lacking in older recordings. Les immediately asked one of the workers what it was, and they looked at the CDs in their collection, all of which were home made mixes and the girl who made them wasn't there.
This started a maddening search for this song, that to this day I haven't been able to find. The closest I've found is "Maplewood" by the The Heavy Blinkers, and while I enjoy the aural confections whipped up by the blinkers, I still yearn for the sweet melodies from the song that we could never find.
Flash forward to Christmas 2007. While in the Halifax Old Navy on December 23rd I heard a song that sampled "It's Over" by ELO. And in that busy Old Navy, with holiday shoppers fighting each other for last minute gifts, this song sounding like something I'd like to hear again.
Another search commenced. This time I had a starting point, I knew the song that was sampled, and went from there. It's alarming how difficult it was to find info by typing "It's Over" into the search engine, and it's also alarming how many crappy songs are called "It's Over".
After looking every now and again online I recently found it. It turns out it's a will.i.am song, and frankly, it not a very good one. You can listen to it here. I'd embed it on the site, but it's far too embarrassing.
But finding the second song makes me realize two things. 1) my obvious closeted devotion to ELO and 2) that it's probably better if I never find the first song. If I find it, it probably won't be as good as I remember it, and I'll feel dumb for seeking after it for so long. As long as I never find it I'll keep looking for it, for the perfect song that alludes me, and searching for it will keep me listening to music. Always listening, always searching.
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Thanks for the shout! Moreover, your article was funny and entertaining. Keep up the great work!
ReplyDeleteJason
the heavy blinkers
and by shout...I meant shout-out.
ReplyDeletedude, does this mean that if i mention my favorite musicians, they will stumble on my shout-outs and write me here?
ReplyDeletemy next post will likely reference midlake, band of horses, fleet foxes, my morning jacket and will.i.am (kiss it, tone).
Wow, a comment from a band. Maybe I should name-drop Bono on my blog. On another note, I too have had this happen more often than I care to think about. Fortunately, there's a progam out there that solves this problem, mostly. It's called Shazam - it runs on the iPhone only at the moment (and is free to boot), but it listens to 30 seconds of the song and tells you what it is. It's accurate as heck too.
ReplyDeleteThe Provonian is going places.
ReplyDelete