Category: Music

11 Obscure References in Classic Songs—Explained!

We’ve all heard these classic pop and rock hits a thousand times. But even if you know all the words, do you know what they were about?

“Hotel California,” The Eagles

“Warm smell of colitas rising up through the air”

According to the Eagles’ then-manager, “colitas” was explained to Don Henley and Glenn Frey as literally meaning “little buds” by their Mexican-American road manager, and further as Spanish slang for “marijuana.

“Bohemian Rhapsody,” Queen

“Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the fandango?” … “Bismillah! No!”

Scaramouche is a traditional clown character featured in Italian commedia dell’arte. He is a stock character in Punch and Judy shows and often gets his head knocked off of his shoulders by Punch. The fandango is a lively couples dance usually accompanied by guitars, hand claps and castanets.

“Bismillah” is an Arabic word that means “in the name of God.” It is used at the head of almost every chapter in the Holy Quran

The wonderfully inauthentic art of America’s most vital singer-songwriter – Dylan

You can’t touch this Dylan guy. He’s not there, he’s gone, as Dylan once sang of himself. Then again, he’s easy to find: This summer, for instance, he toured state fairs across much of the U.S., at last the ramblin’, gamblin’ man he pretended to be as a clean-cut kid hanging in Greenwich Village 40 years ago. Dylan knew all along, if often only instinctively, that nothing fresh, new, or startling comes from being “authentic.” It comes from change, growth, evolution, electricity, and “selling out” to the wide world that exists beyond any blinkered, limited conception of proper culture.

The Free-Floating Bob Dylan – Reason.com.

8 year-old Piano Blues Prodigy

Frankie “Sugar Chile” Robinson playing in the 1946 movie ” No Leave, No Love”, starring Van Johnson. Not only did Little Richard also record “Caladonia”, he even copied the fist and elbow showmanship. After playing for president Truman and touring Europe ,Frank Robinson would go on to get his PhD in Psychology and became a therapist.

Why a Song Can Bring Tears to Your Eye.

Why does Adele’s ‘Someone Like You’ make everyone cry? Science has found the formula.

Twenty years ago, the British psychologist John Sloboda conducted a simple experiment. He asked music lovers to identify passages of songs that reliably set off a physical reaction, such as tears or goose bumps. Participants identified 20 tear-triggering passages, and when Dr. Sloboda analyzed their properties, a trend emerged: 18 contained a musical device called an “appoggiatura.”

An appoggiatura is a type of ornamental note that clashes with the melody just enough to create a dissonant sound. “This generates tension in the listener,” said Martin Guhn, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia who co-wrote a 2007 study on the subject. “When the notes return to the anticipated melody, the tension resolves, and it feels good.”

Last year, Robert Zatorre and his team of neuroscientists at McGill University reported that emotionally intense music releases dopamine in the pleasure and reward centers of the brain, similar to the effects of food, sex and drugs. This makes us feel good and motivates us to repeat the behavior.

Measuring listeners’ responses, Dr. Zatorre’s team found that the number of goose bumps observed correlated with the amount of dopamine released, even when the music was extremely sad. The results suggest that the more emotions a song provokes—whether depressing or uplifting—the more we crave the song.

via Why Adele’s ‘Someone Like You’ Makes Everyone Cry – WSJ.com.

Continue reading “Why a Song Can Bring Tears to Your Eye.”

Lennon Became a Right-Winger

John Lennon was a closet Republican, who felt a little embarrassed by his former radicalism, at the time of his death – according to the tragic Beatles star’s last personal assistant.

Fred Seaman worked alongside the music legend from 1979 to Lennon’s death at the end of 1980 and he reveals the star was a Ronald Reagan fan who enjoyed arguing with left-wing radicals who reminded him of his former self.

In new documentary Beatles Stories, Seaman tells filmmaker Seth Swirsky Lennon wasn’t the peace-loving militant fans thought he was while he was his assistant. Continue reading “Lennon Became a Right-Winger”