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You Stepped Into My Life

The New Neo Posted on by

I think we could all use a dose of joy, right?

Of course, those of you who hate the Bee Gees and especially the Bee Gees’ falsetto singing mode may find listening to this the opposite of joyful. It’s a fairly obscure song by the Bee Gees I recently discovered, and I just love it. You may say “oh, neo, you are tiresomely indiscriminate about the Bee Gees; you love all their stuff.” But no, I merely like some of it – and even among the many songs I love, there are degrees of love.

This particular song may not have caught on when it was released on their 1976 album “Children of the World,” but it’s so upbeat, so expressive of the bubbly happiness a person can feel when in the grip of the first blush of love, that it never fails to put a smile on my face. That smile becomes especially broad when I hear the keyboard (synth?) that begins at around 0:16, and then Barry’s musical yelp at 0:18-0:23. And I especially like the passage from 1:33 to 1:53. Is the song disco? Is it funk? Who cares? Enjoy:

It was a somewhat bigger hit in 1978 for Melba Moore, who turned it into what I hear as a more strictly disco version with more instrumental parts, a faster tempo, and the same relentlessly happy vibe. I like this one very much, too, although the Bee Gees edge it out slightly for me, in part because that synth bit is lacking here. They each have their substantial charms, though. Do we really have to choose? Let’s just dance:

I can’t think of another song that so perfectly captures the experience of sudden love, meeting someone out of the blue and feeling that energizing rush where all’s right with the world when a minute before things seemed so wrong. I fell in love almost instantaneously with my ex-husband. I was twenty-one years old, and although I’d had quite a few serious relationships up to that time, I knew instantly this was The Real Thing. The course of my very lengthy marriage didn’t run at all smooth, and ultimately we divorced, but both of us knew and know that what we felt was very very real despite its suddenness.

I find the phrase “stepped into my life” so interesting. The unusual thing about it is that word “stepped” – the lyric doesn’t say the more conventional “came in my life.” “Stepped” gives that feeling of “suddenly, suddenly” – at one moment the stage is empty, and then the main actor comes on to applause and happy relief. And the way Barry sings “suddenly, suddenly” is just effervescent.

A lot of people think the Bee Gees’ lyrics are ho-hum, but although I think I understand why they say that, I don’t agree. They’re not deep poets like Leonard Cohen, whom I also love. They’re not Bob Dylan, whose lyrics are more obscure and complex, whom I don’t especially love. I like the Beatles but I don’t love them, and many of their early lyrics are just bubblegum stuff and many of their later ones are rather nonsensical to me. The Bee Gees’ lyrics often seem simple and mundane till you think about them more; sometimes a word such as “stepped” is very telling. “You Stepped Into My Life” is one of their more simple lyrics, except that in a way it’s brilliant. And the music isn’t simple at all, although it’s catchy as all get-out.

Comments

You Stepped Into My Life — 60 Comments

  1. It’s pleasant enough and definitely disco. A bit of a precursor to the addictive “Stayin Alive” song that followed the next year.

    Nice to have you confirm that “love at first sight” can happen.

  2. “ The Bee Gees’ lyrics often seem simple and mundane till you think about them more; sometimes a word such a “stepped” is very telling. “You Stepped Into My Life” is one of their more simple lyrics, except that in a way it’s brilliant. And the music isn’t simple at all, although it’s catchy as all get-out.” Agreed. Here, “step” and “stepped” is phrased with authority. It has the ring of self-assertion. Of power.

    A different and more surface objection to the Bee Gees is their disco era output, summed up almost dismissively that “they were just Australia’s answer to Sweden’s ABBA.”

    While obviously mistaken when the Bee Fees early and later work is included — if we delimit both to “disco era players,” how would you compare and defend, neo?

  3. TJ:

    I’m not an ABBA fan at all, which is a bit curious, because I’ve heard a lot of people compare the two groups and say they are similar. I find them quite different. For one thing, I generally prefer male voices and especially the Bee Gees’ voices, which have a special resonance that I find mesmerizing. For another thing, ABBA has no emotional valence for me at all. The Bee Gees do. I also find the Bee Gees far complex musically, particularly in terms of rhythm, as well as having much more variety.

  6. om:

    Beware, beware! Don’t listen to it again – not even once – or you may find its addictive powers growing on you. 🙂

  7. STILL: ABBA’s appeal is two-fold. Anthems and anthemic torchy romance. This baliwick in music was not the Bee Gees metier. Thus, one can see a divide in fan interest and loyalty between them. Yet both were in that time dance powering music.

    But the Bee Gees powers of re-invention — to me, this neglect is something you’ve rightly driven home to me to accept its protean, creative wizardry from their catalog. Truly, a musical reality and genius unrecognised before, leaving me dazzled.

    Another point in this song selection emerges as I’ve let its brain-worm into the background of my mind now, is the very paradigm of the term “steppen” — a grandiloquent equivalent to seduction for the Disco Crazed era.

    No time period before it has ever made this notion in music primary. From the hustler (or pimp’s) walk, to the gay underground, to Studio 94, Steppen” was about the nuanced advertising of lust and the opportunity to impress — and hence, to seduce.

    Seduction, in its Latin roots, means “to be led astray.” And in the pre-AIDS/HIV era of sexual liberation, that became its singular sizzling focal point. Did it not?

    Boogie on babe.

  9. The video with the pictures of life in the 70s spurs this thought I always have. I was born in 1970, and I still have memories of that decade (first day of school, various moments, birthdays). And of course I remember them all with the clarity that comes from human sight, meaning a summer day with blue skies looked the same way then as it does now.

    But because the methods for recording sights and sounds were less technically advanced, one tends to forget that life then had the same clarity as now, that life was experienced in the slightly blurry, somewhat less colorful tones of movies and TV shows of the era. More absurdly, when watching a black and white movie, it’s tough to visualize the 40s and 50s in color, even though intellectually I know a spring day in Minnesota in 1943 looked and felt the way it did 79 years later.

    And yet, I think the 1970s was the best decade for both movies and music. That troubled, fractious ten years gave us dozens of classics that hold up even now, like the Bee Gees, The Godfather, Jaws, John Denver, etc.

    And you can still see vestiges of the 70s, mostly in small towns, where buildings don’t get torn down, but repurposed. The old Dairy Queen (or Tasty Freeze) becomes the used car lot, the A&W becomes a strange bar. The bones of the previous decades are everywhere.

  10. neo:

    I’ve liked most of the other Bee Gees songs without needing a second go around. 🙂

  11. om:

    Ah, but some do need it. Take it from me.

    Not that I need you to like it. But I’ve found that often even the Bee Gees songs I don’t like initially then start to grow on me after another listening or two, and sometimes they even end up being big favorites of mine.

  12. Mitchell Strand:

    I’ve seen a lot of comments on YouTube from people who grew up in the 70s saying it was the best and in particular the most fun time for popular music.

    The rest of your comment made me think of this 1973 Paul Simon song:

  14. Yeah, you stepped in it, but you didn’t exactly light up my life or give me hope to carry on or light up my days or fill my nights with song …

    The Seventies had a lot of good music in the beginning and the middle, but ended up with a lot of lousy arena rock and heavy metal that made the changes in the Eighties really welcome. I do love a lot of the forgotten early Seventies Top 40 junk pop that was playing in the school bus back then. It takes me back.

  15. Never had anybody/anything step into my life with instant effect. It was always a matter of growing on me.
    Not sure if I’d like to find I stepped into somebody else’s life and had no clue but being clueless is one of my more famous characteristics.

    During high school and college, others’ choices in music were all over my eardrums and I didn’t have much choice. On the other hand, I didn’t have to bother. It was in the dorm or on somebody’s car radio or…..

    I preferred folk, even the stuff like PP*M and such. Gave me some material for dreaming. What if I were at…?

    Line from the Limelighters: “Worked the fields with a plough and a gun….” I can see that. I’ve read Exodus. Other examples…. K Trio re the Alamo….been scared and wondering. I kind of grok that crossing the line. Sort of, anyway.

    “Stepped into my life….” No connection to anything I’d ever experienced or would. Couldn’t even picture it clearly enough to lament not having it. So left me kind of blah.

  16. I had a similar reaction to first seeing my wife. She did, too. We married and divorced 8 years later. It seemed the relationship was just too toxic. 25 years later, we connected again and we have been married almost 6 years.

    I loved 1970s music and used some of it as a sound track I made for a movie of the 1981 Transpac Race, which we came within winning overall by 9 minutes. This clip does not have the BeeGees but it is 1970s music.

    We sailed 2400 miles in 12 days.

  17. Mike K:

    That’s a great story about you and your wife getting back together.

    And wow on the race!

  18. I agree with Geoffrey Britain, there’s a lot of what would result in “Stayin’ Alive” in this song. And “steppin'” is a big component of that song, “you can tell by the way I use my walk.” Also has a very strong “walking” beat.

    Great to hear about meeting your husband, neo! Not sure if this is what you meant, but a lot of discussion about love, or at least a certain type of love, involves talk of “chemistry.” Sometimes, as Richard Aubrey describes, it’s more practical, sensible. But sometimes, as you and Mike K describe, it’s an immediate, visceral feeling. There are many songs that describe both, and all points between (humans like to write and sing about love).

    The “chemistry” type of attraction can be wonderful, but it seems the chemistry that causes that passion and attraction does not have to have any relation to what is sensible, practical or sustainable. And there are certainly a lot of songs written on that topic; being passionately in a relationship that cannot work and is ill fated.

    Two of my favorite songs on this subject are Cole Porter’s “Night and Day” and “Under my Skin.” They are both about obsession, being so attracted to someone that one literally cannot think of anything else. Unlike this Bee Gees song, neither Porter song is as optimistic or upbeat. Both songs address the potential danger and sorrow in such passion; and the risk.

    However, I agree with neo (and the Bee Gees), sometimes it’s fun to throw caution to the wind and just focus on the pure joy of the feeling of being in love.

  19. A side note about Porter’s “Night and Day” and “Under my Skin.” Cole Porter was either bi-sexual or a homosexual man whose wife was a “beard” and in on the ruse. As much as I find both songs incredible accounts (lyrically and musically) of what I know of love as a heterosexual, knowing about Porter’s sexuality (and knowing how taboo that was in early, 20th century America) I can’t help but hear undertones of that in both songs. Words like “torment,” “deep in the hide of me,” “under my skin,” “I’d sacrifice everything for the sake of having you near in spite of a warning voice,” “use your mentality, wake up to reality.”

    They are two of my favorite love songs, and, to me, encapsulate complex concepts of romantic, heterosexual relationships. Yet, Porter was almost certainly writing about the struggle of romantic love as a closeted gay man.

    But I could have it completely wrong. He may have written both songs purely as work assignments. “Night and Day” for the film, “The Gay Divorce” and “Under my Skin” for the film, “Born to Dance.” Meaning to write about normal, heterosexual romance. And both songs certainly work that way. Porter was very witty and clever and included a lot of innuendo in his lyrics. He really enjoyed wordplay. It’s hard to imagine there wasn’t more going on there.

  20. Regarding what neo writes here, “…both of us knew and know that what we felt was very very real…”

    When that has happened to me, that “chemistry” thing, it was as scary as it was wonderful and exciting. And, as Rudy Clark wrote and Betty Everett and Cher sang, “it’s in the kiss (that’s where it is).”

    There were times I would meet a young woman and we seemed very compatible, very much each others’ “types,” and we’d eventually kiss and… meh. It’s O.K., but no spark. But there have been a few times where, WOW! And, almost immediately my thought would be, “uh-oh.”

    One senses that the whole is much greater than the sum of the parts. There is a physical, palpable passion there that cannot be contained or controlled. It’s like two atoms that share a covalent bond. It’s not your typical molecule and you can sense that there is part of it beyond your control. In my experience that was not knowable until I physically “met” the woman, in a kiss.

    Because of this I am very sympathetic with folks who have to end their relationships due to incompatibility. In my own experience I’ve seen that “chemistry” thing has no correlation with compatibility. Aside from “chemistry” another common word is, “spark.” The tiniest spark will cause a huge conflagration when it meets combustible fuel. Once started it can’t be stopped and has to burn itself out.

    As Alberto Dominguez wrote* and Nat King Cole sang, “While the gods of love look down and laugh at what romantic fools we mortals be.”

    *Actually, that lyric is not in Dominguez’ Spanish language original. Milton Leeds wrote the English lyrics that differ a bit, but still convey Dominguez’ theme.

  22. I agree with GB. My first thought was “did this predate or come after Staying Alive?” Either way it seems to be a “first draft” or a derivative.

    Now I really like the Bee Gees, but like many artists they don’t always come up with winners. The fact that they had such a long career with many different styles is a testament to their talent; no one hit wonders they. Just watching/listening to their “One Night Only” Vegas show demonstrates how many truly great songs they had.

  23. I can’t think of a song right now that gives me that “first rush of love” feeling, but perhaps “Do You Believe in Magic” comes close. I’ve certainly felt that limerence and it IS magic!

    Here’s an unbelievable story (but it’s true): When I met my husband Joe, I was being introduced to dozens of co-workers at my new job and he was one of them. I knew vaguely who he was and I knew he was married. When I was introduced to him, a foreign thought popped into my head—word for word—“Whoever is married to this man is the luckiest woman in the world.” No reason why I would have thought this—he was average looking, not rich, not particularly outgoing. Just a nice guy with a good sense of humor.

    I guess that thought must have stuck with me and I must have mentioned it to a guy I was dating casually at the same office (what was I thinking!) because one day that guy told me that I was in luck. He’d heard that Joe and his wife were getting a divorce.

    A few months later I saw Joe at a retirement party at a local pub, sitting by himself and looking kinda lost. He had no chance; I zoomed over, said something really silly, at that was that. We talked until they chased us out of the pub and the next day he left a funny newspaper clipping on my desk at work.

    That was 34 years and two kids ago, and I definitely consider myself to be the luckiest woman in the world.

  24. It’s not a song, but here’s a poem I saved when I was young because it captures being thunderstruck by young/puppy love. Oddly enough, it’s called “Song.”

    “I don’t know any more what it used to be
    Before I saw you at the table sitting across from me
    All I can remember is I saw you look at me
    And I couldn’t breathe and I hurt so bad I couldn’t see.

    I couldn’t see but just your looking eyes
    And my ears was buzzing with a thumping noise
    And I was scared the way everything went rushing around
    Like I was all alone, like I was going to drown.

    There wasn’t nothing left except the light of your face,
    There might have been no people, there might have been no place,
    Like as if a dream were to be stronger than thought
    And could walk into the sun and be stronger than aught.

    Then someone says something and then you spoke
    And I couldn’t hardly answer up, but it sounded like a croak
    So I just sat still and nobody knew
    That since that happened all of everything is you.”

    “Song” by Edwin Denby

  25. Pingback:When New York City Stepped Into My Life

  29. That you for that 70s fotologue…. it seems designers were straining to be starkly modern, but from today it all looks classic and comfortingly normal…
    My dad was one of the oddballs who bought a Pacer, and we loved it… except when the sun shone on it in the summer… lotta glass.

  30. RigelDog,

    A similar thing with a fully formed sentence popping into my head when I met my wife. It had never happened before nor since when meeting someone and it was not my inner monologue. It was as if a voice of someone who was not present, a disembodied voice, spoke directly into my mind: “If you ever marry it will be to this woman.”

    Scared the heck out of me!

    And, I think the reason it was worded that way is that I was determined to never marry. I had decided against it at least a decade prior and everyone who knew me knew that about me; I was determined to remain a life-long bachelor. It was so odd to me that I heard those words and that anything relating to marriage would even be in my mind.

    Very odd. And my wife has a different story of what happened to her upon first meeting me. Different, but similar. We met a long way away from where either of us lived our lives, although we both lived in that same place briefly. And we both have similar stories of the completely random impulses that caused us to travel to that town.

    Strange, but true.

  31. Memories of the days of our lives. The music was never a big thing for me, but it was ever present on the radio, TV, and juke boxes. It was background, like in the movies, but after the music of my high school and college days (1940s-1960s – Sinatra, Cosby, Nat King Coile, Sara Vaughn etc.) that was all it was.

    I don’t associate any one song with when I met my wife. Maybe a hymn would be appropriate. Like Amazing Grace. Because I met her in church. I was 23 and tired of the dating scene and failed relationships. Mrs. JJ to be was serving coffee at an after church social gathering. When I got my coffee from her, our eyes locked, and I was hooked. Thirty days later she accepted my proposal, and we were married two weeks later, just after I finished flight training at Corpus Christi, TX. We honeymooned as we drove to my first squadron assignment at NAS North Island in San Diego.

    Both of us are grateful we found one another in such an unlikely way. Sixty-six years together and she is still the light of my life. Amazin Grace indeed.

  32. My dad stepped into my mom’s life thanks to her photo.
    Dad taught mathematics at the university at the Faculty of Mathematics. He was blue-eyed (a rarity in my country) and handsome. One day in 1960, he came to the Faculty of Chemistry to pick up one document. There was a board with photos of the best performing students. Among them, he saw a photo of my mother and immediately fell in love 🙂 . He found out her class schedule and introduced himself to her after class. A young blue-eyed teacher easily won her heart 🙂 They later married when she completed her master’s degree..

  33. J.J.

    What a beautiful meeting. One of my kids just had a similar thing. She met a guy about a year ago. Were engaged after about six months of dating. Had a wedding date in the future, then up and eloped a few weeks ago. When you know it’s right, you know it’s right. Why wait? I wish I had been as bold when I met my wife.

  36. Rufus T. Firefly:

    Interesting. I have a slightly similar story. I met my husband in a very random way when I was a law student looking for a place to live. I had had several serious relationships prior to that when I had been in love, but I always knew I could not marry those people. I wanted to marry some day but I was very doubtful that I would ever meet anyone I felt that I could marry. But less than 24 hours after meeting my husband-to-be (I don’t remember exactly when, but it was less than a day) I thought, “I could marry him.” It was a thought that really surprised me.

    It wasn’t just “chemistry,” either, although there was that. It was something deeper than that.

  37. Cole Porter was either bi-sexual or a homosexual man whose wife was a “beard” and in on the ruse.

    Per Mark Steyn, the two adored each other.

  39. Rufus said: “A similar thing with a fully formed sentence popping into my head when I met my wife. It had never happened before nor since when meeting someone and it was not my inner monologue. It was as if a voice of someone who was not present, a disembodied voice, spoke directly into my mind: “If you ever marry it will be to this woman.” }}}}

    Wow, you are the first person I’ve ever come across who had something just like my experience! So you know exactly what I mean. It’s a foreign thought, it’s out of nowhere and it’s contrary to one’s normal expectations. As though one was thinking of nothing in particular except maybe lunch, when there’s an announcement in your head: “Des Moines, Iowa is a great place to live.” Whahhht?? Maybe so but I live in California and plan to stay. And then a year later you have an unsolicited offer to take your dream job in Des Moines.

  40. Art Deco:

    All those things are true of Porter. He was gay, his wife knew, it was convenient for both to be married, and they adored each other.

  42. Tommy Jay, thanks for that! I’m going to look out for more Dirty Cello. They swing. I like the Gypsy Jazz influence too.

    Here’s another classic love song, with cellist Maya Belsitzman, and Mayan Ephrat on the brushes, They Can’t Take That Away From Me.

  44. TommyJay,

    I don’t recall hearing a bad version of that song. It’s such a great song to dig into, especially for female vocalists. I’m still loyal to Peggy Lee’s version, though.

    It was written by Otis Blackwell, the man behind some of Elvis Presley’s biggest hits.

  45. neo,

    Similar with my wife, in that it wasn’t chemistry. We hadn’t even shaken hands, let alone kissed. There certainly was chemistry once those things happened, but that initial intuition was something different.

    I don’t recall ever being in the presence of a hollywood starlet known for her sex appeal, but I’ve heard some people say that such people (male or female) have an incredible allure. You know when they are in the room and all eyes are drawn to them. I have not experienced that, but I believe it may be possible.

  47. Baceseras,
    Thank you back. That Belsitzman is wonderful.

    I used to play some of the Bach cello suites, but transcribed for the brass instrument I was playing. I don’t dislike chamber music, but I guess it doesn’t pull me strongly enough to listen to much of it. But the actual cello is such a soulful instrument it is a shame that it is usually relegated to the typical classical music fare.

    The thing I like about the “Fever” track in my comment above is the tonal range and the soulfulness of it. I love that low end. OK, the last couple ultra high notes are a little ridiculous. She’s just showing off and having fun. Fun is good.

    In the Dirty Cello performance I heard, Ms. Roudman played a song that sounded to me like a violin, or possibly viola solo. All high end. On her cello of course. And it was fast with fast pizzicato interspersed. She did also play the violin later.

    Peggy Lee’s version of the song is outstanding. My father was a fan of hers, so I heard her music frequently as a kid.

  48. It’s before Saturday Night Fever, so I’d say it’s funk but proto-disco.

    I mainly dislike it because it’s “repetomusic”, and not that interesting musically to make up for it.

    “Repetomusic” is my own invented term for music which repeats the same thing over and over and over again, to absolute excess which renders it “hooky”. The usual addendum (more in a moment) is that is almost always is attempting to be serious and/or “soulful”.

    This style can be redeemed by a number of things, with Hall & Oates being the best example offhand of stuff that “ought to class as repetomusic”, but redeems itself just by not being to serious and much much too much fun. That last part is what saves it from being repetomusic: Hall and Oates neither attempt to be serious about their songs and they are clearly, when you watch them in the music videos, having a lot of fun with them. Another perfect example would be the 60s song by “The Archies”, “Sugar Sugar” — very repetitious, but it’s FUN. It’s CANDY. And that’s why it’s not garbage.

    FWIW, the worst examples of repetomusic are 80s Journey (70s was decent) and 80s Starshit (yes, that is spelled accurately).

    Journey’s “Oh, Sherrie” — even today, I believe I accurately recall that it repeats “Oh, Sherrie” 13 times, and “holds/hold/holding on” 9 times. Those four words make up 50% of the “song”!!! It’s boring and insipid and it’s garbage. It is to singing what melodrama is to drama. A cheap knock-off that bad writers do in place of actually doing something well. The 80s version of Autotune.

    Sorry, BTW, if anyone loves that song, not looking to hurt anyone’s feelings, but yeah, it’s garbage. Mind you — not saying you can’t like it. Just be honest that it’s garbage and thus at best a “guilty pleasure”.

    Probably the worst offender, however, is “Starshit”. They wrote “We sang this shitty”, and then followed it up with “Sarah”, which (I am open to argument) is the worst example of Repetomusic out there.

    ‘Sarah’ repeats the title THIRTY-TWO #$^#^#^ times!! It’s freaking 80% of the “song”!! To reuse another quip about music, “That’s not music, that’s masturbation.”

    Don’t say you like this, because I’m not going to be nice on this one: “your taste in songs sucks”… 😀

    You can like it, still, but you should perhaps listen to more music so your taste improves. 😀

    It is absolutely disgusting that the band that wrote and sang the absolutely brilliant “white rabbit” went on to “create” this offal.

    Much of pop music is like this, mind you. Which is why pop music generally sucks.

    BTW, there is the song “Pop Muzik”, by “M” — this song exhibits exactly what I am talking about, but it’s doing so, deliberately. As I understand it, some Eurofolk were standing around at a party, and, in the course of the conversation pop music’s predictability came up. “M” claimed it (correctly, I’d assert) was cheap and repetitive, and anyone could write a hit. A bet was the result. If he could make a hit song, the loser paid the studio fees. If he failed, he did. It hit #1 in the USA, according to Billboard, and was #7 or #40 on two different rankings for the year (1979 or 1980, depending on the list). Needless to say, not only did he not pay the studio fees, he made a crapton of money.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Avvh5H-EPWU

  49. OBloody:

    The Bee Gees did not release this version – it was too long and repetitive. I happen to like it, however. The version they did release was much shorter.

    They almost never did repetitive music except every now and then, purposely. They were notable for changing it up, especially rhythmically, and also a lot of key changes. This is one of their more repetitive songs, however, which works if you love what they’re doing here (I do) and of course doesn’t work if you don’t. What I like about it is that synth – plus Barry does mix it up somewhat vocally, and the song does have a lot of rhythmic surprises that for me don’t lose their surprise value on repetition.

  50. When I became aware of Top 40 radio as a pre-teen in the early 60s, media (newspapers, TV and radio) paid no attention to the music. It was 5-10 years before Rock Music Critics came along. I didn’t miss them.

  51. }}} The Bee Gees did not release this version – it was too long and repetitive. I happen to like it, however. The version they did release was much shorter

    Well, at 5+ minutes, it’s obviously “too long” to get airplay. There have been only a few songs that ever got airplay of note on radio stations that were over 4 mins.

    But it still seems likely that it was meeting my standard for “repetomusic”.

    As I note, this does not mean you can’t like it, and my primary issue is not with an occasional foray into that arena (as with the Bee Gees), but when your entire ouvre (as was the case with later Journey and all of “Starshit”, as contrasted with Jefferson Airplane/Starship) is pop garbage, well, you are pretty much the music equivalent of an 80yo hooker. X-S

    You should have quit long long ago. Desperate to sell anything you can just to make a buck.

    It’s even worse when you have a band with a real history of doing awesome stuff, like Jefferson Airplane.

    Oh, and another band that went this route was Chicago. Great stuff in the 70s, by the 80s they were doing repetomusic. I suspect it transitioned when Terry Kath died in 1979. Plus they separated from their former producer, who may also have been a part of the quality of music coming out, though they felt he was taking financial advantage of them. I am not a sufficient fan of the band to take the trouble to do a deep analysis of which, or both, of those factors contributed to their essentially selling out completely.

  53. OBloody:

    It’s not just that the Bee Gees didn’t release this version for airplay. Even on their album, when they could have done the 5-minute version, they only had the shorter version.

    On the other hand, the Melba Moore version, which is over 7 minutes long, was a pretty big hit in clubs.

  55. ah weem ah wauck
    ah weem ah wauck

    what’s not to like,
    what’s not to like

    in ears drive spikes

  57. }}} OBloody:

    Actually, with today’s music, I think most of it is repetomusic.

    Well, I listen less to today’s pop, but yes, I’d say it is likely to be the case.

    }}} in ears drive spikes

    Gotta kill the earworms, SOMEHOW. 😀

    I’ve found a much less destructive means, interestingly. The song “Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia) by US3, from 1990, does a remarkable job of clearing out and resetting the earworm, in my experience. Cannot guarantee you will experience the same, but you might try it.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwBjhBL9G6U
    It’s based on a similarly titled purely instrumental piece by Herbie Hancock.

    And yeah, “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”, along with “Come on Eileen”, “Oh, Sherrie”, and “Sarah” (along with “We Sang This Shitty”) are all vile disgusting examples of earworm repetomusic.

    If I am in a store and their #$%^%^ crap muzak puts one of them on, if I don’t have headphones I will literally put my fingers in my ears and hum to myself to avoid hearing the piece of excrement.

    }}} More like repetomuck…

    Agreed. 😀

    }}} Even on their album, when they could have done the 5-minute version, they only had the shorter version.

    Maybe that’s a sign they did not like it either, Neo. 😀

    As to the Melba Moore version, that’s different. Club music requirements are happy to have longer versions — the goal there is to relax and dance. It’s also got a much stronger beat and is clearly funk, with just a hint of disco (the horns and the slide type tones), and dance music often has repeto qualities, because the goal is to dance, to zone out, and that helps with that.

    Dancing is very much zen, not motorcycle maintenance.

    Repetition in componentry is a feature, not a bug.

  58. OBloody:

    Obviously they put the shorter version on the album, rather than the longer one, for a reason. I’m assuming that they thought the short version worked better for whatever reason. That’s rather obvious.

    I put the longer version up because I like it better.

  59. }}} I put the longer version up because I like it better.

    No dispute possible, nor intended. 😉

  60. I lost track of this thread for awhile and came back – can’t believe no one ever mentioned “Some Enchanted Evening” from South Pacific!

    Some enchanted evening, you may see a stranger
    You may see a stranger across a crowded room
    And somehow you know, you know even then
    That somehow you’ll see her again and again

    Some enchanted evening, someone may be laughing
    You may hear her laughing across a crowded room
    And night after night, as strange as it seems
    The sound of her laughter will sing in your dreams

    Who can explain it, who can tell you why?
    Fools give you reasons, wise men never try

    Some enchanted evening, when you find your true love
    When you hear her call you across a crowded room
    Then fly to her side and make her your own
    Or all through your life you may dream all alone

    Once you have found her, never let her go
    Once you have found her, never let her go

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