Maddenation
One of the things that makes life great
I need your help on this entry. You know how some songs have their title, then a sort of aclaration in parentheses? Like Phil Collins’s “Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now)” or REM’s “South Central Rain (I’m Sorry).” Mostly, it’s a way for more popular bands to give their songs titles that aren’t the repeated chorus, then use that catch-phrase from the chorus in parentheses. (Bands like Rush or Led Zeppelin don’t bother. They just call the song “Distant Early Warning” or “Over the Hills and Far Away” and never sing that line in the song, and it’s cool.) OK, so one of the things that makes life great is the full title of Lionel Richie’s most famous song. Are you ready?
It’s “All Night Long (All Night).” (Check his official website if you don’t believe me; it’s not always written like that.) Isn’t that awesome? What’s awesome about it is he’s subverting the whole tradition of parentheticals in song titles. I don’t know if it’s intentional, but there it is: not an aclaration at all, but a repetition, and what’s better, that’s how the backup singing goes. Lovely. Oh, and get this: According to wikipedia, “According to an episode of Reading Rainbow when Lionel guest-starred on the show, the song’s theme is about a party that lasts all night long.” I love when musicians reveal the deep meaning of their profound lyrics.
Dan reminded me of another example of subversive parentheses: King’s X’s “(Thinking and Wondering) What I’m Gonna Do,” which is great because it uses the parentheses at the beginning.
So: what are some other parenthetically titled songs you can think of? Do yourself a favor and don’t google it, or you might find the page I found (Don’t Click The Link!), which takes the thrill out of trying to remember. (I didn’t get past the A’s, so I can still play our little game here).
One example to start us out: Rush’s “Anagram (for Mongo),” which is also a subversion, since the first title is, typically, not sung in the song at all (though it is a clue to deciphering the song’s intricate lyrics), and the parenthetical is an inside joke, an allusion to Blazing Saddles where the sheriff shows up with a “candygram for Mongo” (the big galoot). Ha ha ha.
Ready, GO!
Patrick • Inspirations • 03/26/06 • 3 comments
Comments
David • 03/27/06 • 12:10 PM:U2 - Pride (In The Name of Love)
Dan • 03/27/06 • 12:50 PM:“Anagram (for Mongo)” always puzzled me.
One of my favorites is “Pride (In the Name of Love)” by U2.
There’s a Wilco song where they say “I Got You” in almost every line, but the song is called “I Got You (At the End of the Century)”. The parenthetic line is only sung once or twice. And then there’s their song, “Nothing’severgonnastandinmyway (Again)”.
Tool has a song called “(-) Ions”, I believe that’s pronounced as Negative Ions. Eh?
Stevie Wonder has a song called “Ngiculela-Es Una Historia-I Am Singing” and he sings the first verse in Swahili, the second in Spanish, and the rest in English.
Stevie also has a song called “Easy-Goin’ Evening (My Mama’s Call)” and it’s an instrumental! Just some light drums, keys, and Stevie struttin’ the light harmonica.
“It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” [I blew it with the caps] by REM.
I bought a country-pickin’ band’s CD while in Nashville last year. They have a song called “She Just Misses Elvis (Sometimes)”. I think that one sounds funny.
“The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)” by Simon and Garfunkel.
Every song on Radiohead’s album “Hail to the Thief” has a parenthetical statements that don’t seem to do anything besides freak me out.
Incidentally, Prince has at least three songs that replace words with numbers, as in “Nothing Compares 2 U” (which Sinead O’Connor made famous), “Take Me With U”, and “I Would Die 4 U”. The last two are on Purple Rain, which is an awesome album.
Pink Floyd has “Another Brick in the Wall (part 1)”, “Another Brick in the Wall (part 2)”, and “Another Brick in the Wall (part 3)”. Also, they have “Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts 1-5)” and “Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts 6-9)”. They also have “Speak To Me/Breathe”, which is actually kinda/sorta two songs rolled into one.
Pink Floyd’s album “Animals” contains the following songs,
1. Pigs on the Wing, Part 1
2. Dogs [which, by the way, is one of the best songs that nobody has ever heard]
3. Pigs (Three Different Ones)
4. Sheep
5. Pigs on the Wing, Part 2
Peter Gabriel has two songs on the album So, “This is the Picture (Excellent Birds)” and “We Do What We’re Told ( Milgram’s 37)”, both of which are very weird until you listen to them enough, then they become awesome.
I’m fairly certain that Pearl Jam has no parentheses in their song titles. Their album Ten (#1 on my list of best albums of all time) has only two songs with more than one word as the title, “Even Flow” and “Why Go”.
What about “featuring…” parentheticals (is that a word?)? Outkast has a ton of them, such as “The Way You Move (Feat. Sleepy Brown)” and “Last Call (Feat. Slimm Calhoun, Lil’ Jon & The Eastside Boyz & Mello)”.
N.E.R.D., the rock-hip-hop band founded by The Neptunes’s Pharrell Williams, has a lot of those featured songs, including “Jump (Feat Joel Madden and Benji Madden)”, which is a really good song.
Back to Lionel, The Commodores have “Easy (Like Sunday Morning)”.
I have an album from a band called Kasabian and one of their songs is “L.S.F. (Lost Souls Forever)”. The words nor the acronym appear in the song (or in the lyrics).
The rap group Jurassic Five has an album called Quality Control, and their first song is “Quality Control (Intro)” and their second song is “Quality Control”.
John Lennon has “Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)”, “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)”, “Nobody Loves You (When You’re Down And Out)”, and “Instant Karma! (We All Shine On)”, which has punctuation. Paul McCartney, as far as I can tell, only has “Coming Up (Live)”. That doesn’t count. George Harrison, on his remastered All Things Must Pass CD, included the songs “My Sweet Lord (2000)”, “Ballad Of Sir Frankie Crisp (Let It Roll)”, and “Isn’t It A Pity (Version Two)”. And what about “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)”?
Jeff Buckley, the Seattle guy who drowned just before he was scheduled to take the world by storm, has a song called “Corpus Christi Carol (For Roy)”.
The Flaming Lips are a band I would have thought to have a lot of these types of songs, only has one that I know of, “Approaching Pavonis Mons By Balloon (Utopia Planitia)”, which also is an instrumental. They do do something weird and funny with their parentheses, however. They begin one of their albums with “Race For The Prize (Remix)” and later on have the regular “Race For The Prize”.
One of The Clash’s most famous songs is a perfect example of the use parentheses for the refrain lyrics, “Train in Vain (Stand by Me)”.
A very popular band out these days is The Arcade Fire. They have 4 songs called “neighborhood”. Here’s how they list them:
neighbourhood #1 (tunnels)
neighbourhood #2 (laika)
neighbourhood #3 (power out)
neighbourhood #4 (7 kettles)
In case you haven’t noticed by now, I went through all my MP3s in reverse-alphabetical order to get all this stuff. Not really sure why I went in reverse. I think I was listening to Wilco when I read this post.
Patrick • 03/29/07 • 11:03 AM:Wow. I refound this post because it is linked from the Running out of Lyrics post. I had thought this was longer ago, but apparently I only wrote it on my 35th birthday in 2006.
Nobody beats Lionel Richie’s “All Night Long (All Night)” for parenthetical use. And, Dan, no, those “(Featuring …)” parentheticals don’t count. You should know better.
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