Help, what song is this?

[Snarfyguy]

Late 50s or early 60s, three descending chords, in waltz time. The repeated lyrics in the chorus are three monosyllabic words starting with "please."

There's a very fuzzed out guitar (for the time), an overall woozy vibe and mix and the music fades before the vocal, which lingers and then fades on its own.

I couldn't make out the lyric, but it's a great song and I need to find it.

As usual, I'm looking at Charlie O!

[Charlie O.]

So far I'm not getting it.

Are there drums? Is it country-ish?

[Snarfyguy]

Not country-ish, guitar to the fore, but otherwise conventional period instrumentation.

Not sure if you play music, but the it would have been A major/F major/E major (or similar chord relationship in another key).

Very kind of loose and sloppy, a la Angel Baby, but male singer (but not actually sounding like that song). I don't think it was a top 40 hit because I'd never heard it before.

Apart from the general weirdness of it, the most outstanding feature was that odd, segmented fade-out.

Sorry, this all went by in two and a half minutes or so and that's my best recollection!

[Quaco]

Sounds like a Johnny Ray type pleading thing. Where did you hear it? A lot of stations have playlists online!

[Charlie O.]

Yeah, I'm stumped. Sounds like something Rayge or Muskrat might know, though!

[Snarfyguy]

Yeah, it wasn't on the radio, but at an event, and there wasn't a DJ, but rather a playlist sort of thing and I couldn't track down who/where it was coming from.

Thanks, though!

[Muskrat]

Sounds like a Johnny Ray type pleading thing. Where did you hear it? A lot of stations have playlists online!

Sorry. Not from that description.



(I once had a similar fragment of a song running through me head for years -- years! -- until one day I heard it on an in-store music system. Such a load off my mental back. Turns out it was Grand Funk's "Bad Time." That never would have leapt to mind, though I liked it a lot when it was a hit.

[The Prof]

Late 1850s / early 1860s?
3 descending notes repeated?
One 3 syllable repeated word?

It's obvious

[The Modernist]

Late 50s or early 60s, three descending chords, in waltz time. The repeated lyrics in the chorus are three monosyllabic words starting with "please."

There's a very fuzzed out guitar (for the time), an overall woozy vibe and mix and the music fades before the vocal, which lingers and then fades on its own.

I couldn't make out the lyric, but it's a great song and I need to find it.

As usual, I'm looking at Charlie O!

I'm struggling to imagine it from that description. Can you give us more idea of the genre or an example of something else that sounds vaguely like it, then we'll know what we're looking for.

[Fonz]

'Please please me' by The Beatles?

[Snarfyguy]

I'm struggling to imagine it from that description. Can you give us more idea of the genre or an example of something else that sounds vaguely like it, then we'll know what we're looking for.

It's early rock & roll, but more along the lines of "I Only Have Eyes for You" or Santo and Johnny's "Sleepwalk" than a rockabilly sort of thing, like something you might hear in an old David Lynch or Martin Scorsese movie (or John Waters' 70s work, now that I think of it).

It had a slow tempo and the vocal melody matched the descending chord progression for a plaintive "woah, woah, woah" effect.

The sound palette was kind of indistinct or blurry and whole thing had an off-kilter feeling to it.

[harvey k-tel]

Presumably this was at the John Waters camp, so was most likely an old song rather than a modern pastiche, right?

[Snarfyguy]

Presumably this was at the John Waters camp, so was most likely an old song rather than a modern pastiche, right?

Yeah, I would say early 60s.

[The Modernist]

I'm struggling to imagine it from that description. Can you give us more idea of the genre or an example of something else that sounds vaguely like it, then we'll know what we're looking for.

It's early rock & roll, but more along the lines of "I Only Have Eyes for You" or Santo and Johnny's "Sleepwalk" than a rockabilly sort of thing, like something you might hear in an old David Lynch or Martin Scorsese movie (or John Waters' 70s work, now that I think of it).

It had a slow tempo and the vocal melody matched the descending chord progression for a plaintive "woah, woah, woah" effect.

The sound palette was kind of indistinct or blurry and whole thing had an off-kilter feeling to it.

Sort of Roy Orbison..?

Or this sort of thing..

[Snarfyguy]

Sort of Roy Orbison..?

Or this sort of thing..

Yes, that's the right general direction, but the song in question is sloppier and weirder.

By the way, thanks, all.

[The Modernist]

It almost sounds like a Mark Murphy thing. He was recording later but it sounded 50s/early 60s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_vC12IrC6g

He doesn't say please though!

[fange]

Sure sounds good!

I'll have a think - nothing comes to mind right away. Would you say it sounded more soulish/R&B, or more rock/pop? Something like what The "5" Royales or Lowman Pauling was doing in the early '60s, or what an early garage rock band might have done?

[Snarfyguy]

I didn't get a doo-wop vibe from it, but it's not a million miles away from something like this:



Very echo-y. I'm going to try to figure how to get this question in front of the WFMU community. Somebody there will have to know it.

[Penk!]

It sounds a bit familiar - there are comps around with loads of things like this. Is it this one maybe?
https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ

[Hugh]

The description is making me think of a Bonzo's song but I can’t think which one.