Finding songs on the fringe of memory

[Chordite]

Most of us probably have several songs we can remember part of from our youth but can't name or find. Just a guitar riff or a couple of lines. It is quite infuriating.

I'm looking for as many ways as possible to track these down. The following prove useful but don't work in every case since they require someone be motovated to post the material. Some songs are simply not there for unknown reasons (the Robert John Godfrey track "Mountains" from Fall of Hyperion, for example)

 

This is what I use, any more track down ideas appreciated

 

Youtube

Lyrics sites

Parsons code (the up, up, down same, up analysis)

Top 100 chart listings for the relevant era.

 

Recent successes for me

"American metaphysical Circus" United States of America

"Uranian Sircus" The Flock

and Nic Jones hauntingly beautiful folk song "Annan Water" from 1970

 

A rock song I still can't find with the lyrics (as best I recall)

Blinding whiteness five miles high

All at once I realized

That it happened naturally

Naturaly yeah

 

(not the Byrds Eight Miles High btw)

 

 

[WRGKMC]

Had this happen to me just last week. I was playing my guitar and had the ideal tones for a song so I recorded the main riff so I wouldn't forget it.

 

It was early 70's sleeper and I could clearly hear it i my head and I didn't know who wrote it. but I couldn't make out the lyrics because they were so deeply immersed in tape echo and the hook line (if there is one) was buried. (its one of those songs you heard on the radio for years but never caught the name or band who recorded it)

 

I eventually remembers it was on a sound track for the movie Good Fellas so I was able to find it.

It was called Jump in to the Fire by Harry Nilsson.

 

I may wind up recording this two chord jammer. I think I can nail the bass tones with my Hofner and I know I can do the guitar.

 

[hellion_213]

Happens man. My mind's like an event logger, just stores so much and begins wrapping over itself. Only, I can retain bits and pieces of songs. I use to know almost every song from Metallica's And Justice For All album, now, I only remember various verses, bridges, etc. Songs I've played live, but haven't in a few years, gone. That sucks, but usually, after listening a few times, it comes back.

And that brings me to a side comment. I only gig with Floyd equipped guitars, and they're in the same tuning for our set of Originals. Any cover we do, I play them all in that tuning, or the dropped alternate, which is sometimes kind of odd. It works, and in my mind, I tell myself that it adds a bit of originality. Realistically though, it's just that I don't want to carry more gear, lol. And I'm definitely not re-floating live, unless I have to.

[1001gear]

Drops Of Jupiter. Much thanks to those that nailed it. My shallowness hath forgetted who.

[Phil O'Keefe]

It was called Jump in to the Fire by Harry Nilsson.

 

I may wind up recording this two chord jammer. I think I can nail the bass tones with my Hofner and I know I can do the guitar.

 

I love Nilsson.

 

You should totally cover that - I'd love to hear it!

[Mr.Grumpy]

Those old instrumental "hits" are the hardest to figure out, because there's no words to grab onto. I got so excited when I stumbled across (Santo & Johnny;s) "Sleepwalk" on YouTube, I'd heard the song for years and years, usually as part of a movie of TV show.

[GAS Man]

Yeah, Good Fellas got me setup with that song too. Definitely my fave by Nilsson

[GAS Man]

I had a song that literally drove me nuts for years. The riff would run in my head.

 

Nah nah nah nah nah - na na na - Nah nah nah nah nah - na na na - nanana na na na na na na - nanana na na na na na na - then the band kicked in.

 

Sometimes I'd hear part of it on the radio in my car (I'm talking back in the 70s now) and I'd be like "THAT'S IT! THAT'S IT!" and then the radio station wouldn't say it's name. :0

 

And I mean, this went on for YEARS!!

 

Finally I found out what it was

 

[video=youtube;QQyB5buEV5s]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQyB5buEV5s

 

There's another in my mind that's been there even longer, like 40 or more years. I've given up hope on ever figuring it out as its chordal progression wanes with time.

 

I remember my stepson had an iPhone ap that could name that tune, but it didn't work on my simple chord progression.

 

 

 

 

[Chordite]

Amazing and a somewhat ironic coincidence in the context of the thread that "Pictures of Matchstick Men" was the first single I ever bought back in 68 when I was still in school.

[bookumdano4]

I remember when Pictures of Matchstick Men hit the charts and there was an immediate...... wtf everywhere. Not on the internet though because the internet didn't exist and Hit Parader wasn't about to badmouth any artist and the newly hatched Rolling Stone mag wasn't going to mention anything top 40.... but it was a big deal in talk where I was.

 

The wtf of course was that the guitar riff was/is/are a rip of the "ah" notes sung in Day In the Life and the verse chords almost, but cleverly don't totally borrow from Sgt Pepper, the song. Guess Status Quo really liked the Sgt Pepper album. They hammered out their single within 7 months of the Pepper release.

 

I too, have a remaining 3 records that I can't identify in my history on the planet. One from a 1962 album I can't find, doesn't seem to exist, yet I see it in my mind cuz I owned it, hence heard the song...and can actually duplicate a good chunk of it in the studio but still no one knows what it is.......(guess I should record it, release it, and wait to see who sues me.... maybe no one will and it'll be my own hit).......

 

... and a record I heard on an album oriented radio station in 1981... well, the Stevie Wonder-owned station here in LA whose name escapes me... only remember two words, and can't find.... even though my hunch at the time had been that the tune sounded like the Climax blues band... but it's not.

 

A song from 2-3 years ago that while hearing it four or five times, I SENSED, I was never gonna find out who the band was and what the song is. The lyrics on that one are so stupidly buried just out of reach to pick out words. grrr.

 

There were more unidentifiable tunes, but fortunately, their identities sort of sift to the surface over time. There was one that escaped me for almost 40 years. It was a pop song that was in heavy rotation on two pop stations where I was in June 1967, just after Pepper and before "Baby You're A Rich Man" was released. That thing perplexed me to no end.......I heard it at least 20 times that summer on the radio.

 

Just to show you how obscure that one was... it was a record written by Done Ciccone of Critters (never mind if you don't know him), cobbled together in the studio by the Berry/Sloan guys under a made-up group name, released on Kama Sutra and... the record.....I'm tellin ya it got heavy rotation on the radio... was called "There's Got To Be A Word". The made up group was called the Innocence. How did I finally identify it? I was talking to Don Ciccone about it and he told me..........."oh, I wrote that... here's the info........"

 

Listen to the tune... it's really umm......obscure.... and MAN did that bother me for years that I couldn't identify this little tune that I could hum in between listening to Happy Jack and All You Need Is Love. If you DO listen to the record on youtube, you'll probably shake your head and say "all that grief over THIS song?"

 

Radio can be so cruel when songs are not announced.

 

Anyway, it's just luck that I eventually find out what these things are, no matter how many of the listed sources I try.

[Chordite]

I always thought Joe South 'Hush' was the note for note Na na-na na - na na na - na na na copy of the ah part of day in the life.

[bookumdano4]

Status Quo's guitar riff is Day in The Life. Joe South and Deep Purple went even further by singing the melody AND playing the same chords as Day In The Life. Pretty bold, wasn't it? Good thing Allen Klein wasn't yet working for the Beatles or he, no doubt, would've file a slew of complaints in court. imo anyway.

[GAS Man]

Here's another one that drives me crazy from time to time. I have to search just using a few words from the lyrics. I always remember that there's a "Hello my . . . ." in it and something about "strawberry". But then I never remember the "what" and "who".

 

Brothers Johnson - Strawberry Letter No. 23

 

[video=youtube;f0bdLdTJdKI]

[Chordite]

Just found this one, I knew it was a classic and buzzed round and round my head but I could never find it because the words are Spanish (or Portuguese) and it doesn't get any air time for decades. Smoulderingly introduced here by Eartha Kitt it was Brazil 66

 

[video=youtube_share;BrZBiqK0p9E]

 

[catscurlyear]

one of the first riffs i learned,. i bet i could actually play that riff with my big toe .

[Etienne Rambert]

Awesome cut --- one for all time! The first time I heard bossa nova, I thought it was the most exciting music I've ever heard. Still do.

 

It was so much more melodic and rhythmic than the British guitar God crap all my friends were listening to. I moved over to bossa and to Country hard core. Never looked back. Bossa nova saved my life musically.

[GAS Man]

Yep, that's one of those songs that often found itself being sampled on various movie/TV soundtracks. Often when the genre wants to impart a "hip 60s" vibe (e.g. Austin Powers) I couldn't have identified it my name either, but definitely very familiar.