Song of the day: Lulu – "The Boat That I Row"

Mysteries of the Human Mind, Part 214

I was listening to an album of orchestral works by Maurice Ravel. Alborada del Gracioso was just about to finish and I wondered what was next. I had a look at the track list, and the next one up was Une Barque sur l’Océan. As soon as I saw the title, this popped into my head and wouldn’t leave until I had found it and played it – loudly:

Lulu – “The Boat That I Row” (1967)

Link

In case you’re wondering, “Une barque sur l’océan” means “A boat on the ocean”.

Also in case you’re wondering, this is Une Barque sur l’Océan:

Ravel – Une Barque sur l’Océan (1906)
(Boston Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Seiji Ozawa – recorded 1975)

Link

***

And from the department of “Well I never knew that”:

“The Boat That I Row” was written – and first recorded – by Neil Diamond:

Neil Diamond – “The Boat That I Row“ (1967)

Link

Well I never knew that.

***

Right. Now back to that album of Ravel’s orchestral works.

Student-Teacher Songs

This is a collection of songs that emanated from something I mentioned in a post a while ago. At the time, I said that I was concerned at the amount of parentheses I use in my text (something I still do with alarming frequency).

My friend Michael emailed me to say that my concern reminded him of a song by American singer Dan Baird called “I Love You Period”.

(Sidenote: Dan Baird was the lead singer of the Georgia Satellites who had a huge hit with “Keep Your Hands To Yourself“, which just happened to be Michael’s suggestion for Educating Peter # 14 on this blog.)

Michael remembered the song had the word “parentheses” in it lyrics. (Now there’s a word you don’t see often in a song. Oops – there I go again. Sorry about that.)

Michael told me that “I Love You Period” is a song about a student who falls in love with his teacher, he writes her a letter, and she sends it back with corrections. (Tee hee.)

That got me thinking of other teacher-student/student-teacher songs. I thought of a couple, and Michael thought of a couple more. Then I thought of some more, and so did Michael. The next thing we knew, we had ourselves a list of student-teacher songs.

After looking at the list and sorting out what was suitable and what wasn’t (one of Michael’s suggestions was a dreadful song by a boy band, and one of my suggestions was way too serious in amongst the light-heartedness of the other songs), I settled on ten tunes to tickle your tummy earbuds.

And here they are:

Download (ZIP, 80 MB)

Details I couldn’t fit in the playlist:

1. Doris Day – “Teacher’s Pet“ (1958)

2. Lulu – “To Sir With Love“ (1967)

3. Elton John – “Teacher I Need You“ (1973)

4. ABBA – “When I Kissed The Teacher“ (1976)

5. Rockpile – “Teacher Teacher“ (1980)

6. The Police – “Don’t Stand So Close To Me“ (1980)

7. 38 Special – “Teacher, Teacher“ (1984)

8. Van Halen – “Hot For Teacher“ (1984)

9. Ruth McKenny – “She’s In Love With Her Teacher” (1987)
(I thought it was cute how the playlist shortened the song title to “She’s In Love With Her Tea”. It made me think of this.)

10. Dan Baird – “I Love You Period” (1991)

By the way, I’m happy to add to that list if you can think of any other songs that’d be suitable.

(Please note: “Teach Your Children Well” is not suitable. In any way.)

Musical coincidences # 218

Today’s coincidence is a triple header, and I may need to explain how I arrived at what you’re about to hear.

I’ll call the following course of events “What Peter Did”:

1. I recently saw on a music chart “Here Comes My Girl” by Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers. When I saw that song title I thought of “Here Comes The Night” by Them.

2. I started remembering the choruses in both songs, and I noticed that they were fairly similar. As a result, I started getting them both mixed up by having a part of the chorus in one of the songs choruses appear in the chorus of the other – and vice versa.

3. I wondered if those choruses were as interchangeable as I thought they were, so I fired up my audio editing program.

4. I messed about with the two songs and was able to replicate what I heard in my head. Hooray for technology!

5. As I was fiddling about with the audio for those two songs, I noticed that the way Van Morrison occasionally sang the word “night” in “Here Comes The Night” – using three notes to sing that one word (i.e., “ni-i-ight”) – sounded just like the ending of The Turtles‘ “Elenore”.

6. I tacked on the end of “Elenore” to the audio track in the part where Van Morrison was about sing “ni-i-ight” again, so that at the end of the track it’s The Turtles singing it instead of Van.

7. I saved the file, uploaded it to DivShare Grooveshark, and wondered if anyone would understand what on Earth I was talking about.

So what I’m basically trying to say is…

When I hear Tom Petty’s “Here Comes My Girl”, this is what I hear:

Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers – “Here Comes My Girl“ (1979) /
Them – “Here Comes The Night“ (1964) /
The Turtles – “Elenore” (1968)
(excerpt-a-rama)

Here are the full, untangled, versions:

Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers – “Here Comes My Girl“ (1979)

Them – “Here Comes The Night“ (1964)

The Turtles – “Elenore” (1968)

Incidentally, I don’t know if you know this (you probably do), but as I was gathering the links for all the songs and artists I discovered that Them’s version of “Here Comes The Night” wasn’t the first recorded one. The original is by Lulu.

And here it is:

Lulu – “Here Comes The Night“ (1964) (mono)

Lulu – “Here Comes The Night“ (1964) (stereo)