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60s Melodrama

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I heard “You don’t have to say you love me” the other day and was moved to do a playlist of great 60s melodrama so here it is. Please add your suggestions below. I discussed with @Feedback_file who immediately said “what’s the definition of melodrama”. Here’s Wikipedia:

A modern melodrama is a dramatic work in which the plot, typically sensationalized and for a very strong emotional appeal, takes precedence over detailed characterization. Melodramas typically concentrate on dialogue that is often bombastic or excessively sentimental, rather than action. Characters are often flat, and written to fulfil established character archetypes. Melodramas are typically set in the private sphere of the home, focusing on morality and family issues, love, and marriage, often with challenges from an outside source, such as a “temptress”, a scoundrel, or an aristocratic villain. A melodrama on stage, filmed, or on television is usually accompanied by dramatic and suggestive music that offers further cues to the audience of the dramatic beats being presented.

Interestingly there isn’t much soul music which I think qualifies because the emotions are too real. Melodrama is greatly exaggerated with a pinch of fromage. Also, whilst melodramatic songs are usually dramatic, not all dramatic songs are melodrama. Don’t ask me why.

Deep cuts please!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/03QzAoSW9RqWRAycEOTLlf?si=5a629358372c47e0

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Comments

  2. My first thought on this was Momus’s really good translation of Ne Me Quite Pas by Brel. Not as bombastic as some versions but certainly melodramatic…

  9. First sung on record by Eddy Arnold, it was a hit for Ray Charles too, back in the early ’60s.
    “You Don’t Know Me”

    Gonna add this one too.
    Otis Redding “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long”.

  12. Melodrama you say?
    ‘Who knows if it’s real
    Or something we’re both dreaming of’
    Excessively sentimental – check.
    Scoundrel – check
    Pinch of fromage – check.

    Sixties you say. Here’s the perhaps superior original.

  13. My imediate thought was the Vikki Carr song It Must Be HIm from 1966. She’s still going strong at 84 years old. Her birth name was Florencia Vicenta de Casillas-Martinez Cardona. Why change?

  20. I think this qualifies especially his histrionics mid song. It also features the “charming”, line “You’re not very much to look at…” Not first dance at a wedding material then.

  21. That looks such a great playlist. A couple of suggestions:

    Billy Fury Halfway to Paradise is fab. And how about the Eurovision 1971 winner, Un banc, un arbre , une rue’ by Severine which scandalously beat Clodagh Rodger’s Jack in a Box, which limped in in fourth place.

  25. This is great fun. A few more from me..

    Jeanie C. Riley – Harper Valley PTA

    Keith West . Excerpt from a Teenage Opera

    Cilla Black – Alfie

    Troy Hess – Please don’t go topless mother

    Tear-jerking stuff!

      • Drift? Moi? Surely not! I never wander off the topic. Ever!

        Good point @Mike_H.

        And @mikethep is right too about the line between melodrama and maudlin. in country music.

        So what about Kenny Rogers and Ruby, don’t take your love to town?

        You can’t beat Country music for great songs to sob into your beer over. George Jones was a master of this.

        But there are probably only a few country tunes that qualify as melodramatic.

        Folsom Prison Blues?

        Hmmmm. Probably more drama than melodrama.

  33. Does a tune need vocals to be melodramatic? I suspect this would qualify if it featured impassioned vocals – would it still do so in their absence?

    (If it helps, this music (though not this version) appears in the movie when Dean Martin and Jackie Bisset are agonising about their illicit affair)

  34. Nothing about a “temptress”, a scoundrel, or an aristocratic villain in this one, in fact a suspicious surfeit of “joy”. But the execution fits the criteria perfectly…though the film clip was shot at the 1970 World Expo in Osaka and looks almost optimistic. Still – you be the judge.

  35. And while 1970 is nudging the goalposts, how could one resist Andy Williams’s classic from the runaway smash movie of the year (it got Ali McGraw onto the cover of Time magazine)…?

  38. PJ Proby wasn’t pants, he was pants-ripping! Big on delivery, with the right backing (neo-orchestral, Breakaways backing vocals) this must surely be a contender.

  39. Excellent playlist, Twang. These come to mind off the top of my head.

    Secret Love by Kathy Kirby
    Big Bad John by Jimmy Dean
    You Don’t Own Me by Lesley Gore
    Jealousy by Billy Fury
    Downtown by Petula Clark
    Temptation by The Everly Brothers (just about sneaks in as released 1961)

    Plus, I think a good case could be made for House Of The Rising Sun by The Animals.

  42. And now for @Locust, some Swedish melodrama

    We’ve had some fantastic singers who were born to sing melodramatic ballads: Shirley Bassey, Tom Jones, Engelbert Humperdinck etc etc
    I have a question: .
    Can the choice of singer, tempo and arrangement turn a song into a melodramatic song?

    It’s a shame we are restricted to the 1960s. If we could have songs from 1260, this would be a must!

      • I am envious @Twang! The whole morning in the Fado Museum You probably know a lot more about it than me.

        You are right about fado and melodrama. The Portuguese are a people with a penchant for sadness.

        This article is hilarious.

        https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20161118-the-european-country-that-loves-being-sad?fbclid=IwY2xjawFjSRNleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHX3ZSs7UCfAhtL2KMSLepY67lE5evPapTMSH80MlbsjBCjWJUjT-lUCrQQ_aem_ZNvWVjztbr1Ou_wR0FpdcA

        I’ve mentioned Chavela Vargas. Those Mexicans also have a great weakness for melodramatic ballads.

        This tear-jerking gem by Los Dandys topped the Mexican charts in May 1961

        While looking for an example of this I stumbled across an academic paper:

        Musical Interludes in 1960s Mexican Melodrama: Crafting a Sonic Space of Exclusion

        Woo hoo! There’s a rabbit- hole I would happily disappear down.
        Some of this is very interesting. Peter Brook wrote about melodrama!

        “Contemporary usage of the term “melodrama” invokes sensationalist theatrics, moral polarization, and emotional excess. Peter Brook’s influential study, The Melodramatic Imagination, argued that this aesthetic of exaggeration functioned to transform the ordinary into something so entertaining that the audience would pay attention to the stakes of everyday life (10). In eighteenth- and nineteenth-century theater, melodrama referred to the pairing of theatrical drama with musical accompaniment–melos, the Greek word for music. This structural coupling of narrative with music became central to early Hollywood and Latin American cinemas. Musical numbers interrupted the unfolding narrative in order to reinforce character development and emotional texture, or simply to entertain through tone and rhythm. While the centrality of music has largely died off in twenty-first century iterations of Latin American melodrama, in the twentieth century, diegetic music played a fundamental role in what Darlene Sadlier describes as the region’s “populist mode par excellence” (15).

        In Golden Age Mexican cinema, musical performances punctuated and reinforced narrative development; they revealed characters’ intimate feelings and unexpressed emotions. Or alternatively, the musical interlude was non-narrative in function; it paused the plot to provide filmgoers the pleasure of experiencing familiar tunes by renowned performers, and strengthened the feeling of shared cultural ground, not only on-screen but off. It was a crucial diegetic space in which the audience’s identification with national rhythms was consolidated.

        Ana López explains that while music is present across all genres of Mexican Golden Age cinema, it is always “deployed within melodramatic scenarios” (121). The melodrama rose to prominence in Mexico in the wake of the massive popularity of Allá en el Rancho Grande (1936). This film gave birth to the comedia ranchera, a genre that married identifiable icons of mexicanidad with romantic intrigue and exuberantly melodious performances of genres like the bolero, mariachi trio, and ranchera. Importantly, the musical interlude in the comedia ranchera codified these musical genres as indicators of national community. Interrupting the narrative diegesis, the breakout into song operated to “produce a sense of the cohesiveness of a community linked explicitly to national ethos,” a way for the viewer to feel like they belonged within the screened musical exuberance of mexicanidad (López 126). As Desirée J. García notes in her analysis of Allá en el Rancho Grande, the songs performed on screen in folk musicals are not necessarily performed for the audience, but with them. The singer acts as the audience’s emotional conduit; the performance is collective, and fosters a sense of homogeneity and togetherness (77).

        Musicality was not just confined to the cinematic setting of the rural hacienda in Golden Age Mexican cinema, but also flourished in films of the cabaretera or rumbera genre. Set in urban cabarets and starring a working-class prostitute or dancer, cabaretera films include artfully choreographed dance sequences that highlight the rumbera’s costumes and rhythmic prowess. According to scholarship, the musical dance interlude functions in two ways. First, following Eduardo de la Vega Alfaro, as a way to compensate for holes in the plot (168). And second, as a vehicle for erotic expression at a time when most films were ideologically conservative. ”

        Ooops Very sorry about going off piste! Mexican Golden Age Cinematic Melodrama!

        Yes please! Si si si , por favor!

  45. My favourite 60s melodrama is in Italian: Non Ti Amo Più, by Christophe (there’s a French version, but that one’s useless compared to the Italian version!)
    I own the original single (of which it’s the B-side) and can’t count how many times I’ve mimed in an over-dramatical fashion to this absolute tune. It builds and builds with each verse until Christophe has a mental breakdown towards the end. Brilliant!

    The A-side, Aline, is a bit of a melodrama as well, just not half as bonkers and good as its B-side, IMO (but it was a hit at the time, so somebody must have loved it).

    I haven’t delved into the rest of his catalogue, but I get the feeling that most of it would be a bit melodramatic…

  48. Here’s a Billboard article about the music in Almodovar’s films

    https://www.billboard.com/music/latin/pedro-almodovar-director-greatest-musical-hits-7550050/

    Pedro has featured the music of a range of very talented artists in his films, many of whch are mentioned in the article: Luz Casal, Chavela Vargas, Duo Dinamica, La Lupe, Lola Beltran, Estella Morente, Caetano Veloso, Concha Buika, and Chavela Vargas.

    Here from 1961 is Chavela with one of her most famous songs: La Llorona (The crying woman). @Duco01 will remember that one of our favourite artists, Lhasa de Sela, named one of her albums after this song.

    And now I’m going wildly off-pitch . I’ve just read this extraordinary article about Chavela Vargas from the New Yorker. No surprise that she and Almodovar get on well.

    https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/postscript-mexicos-majestic-lesbian-chanteuse-chavela-vargas

    From a majestic Mexican lesbian to the Sunshine Superman Hitmaker.

    I’ve just realised to my delight that Donovan did NOT invent melodrama That is a revelation!

  50. The original ’60s version by Gladys Knight & The Pips is very good, but not really melodramatic enough for our purposes.

    .
    Yvonne Fair’s 1975 remake, however …

  51. There’s quite a few possibilities on Sinatra’s September of My Years album, but I don’t know if that works. I’m not sure Sinatra is believable when he went that direction. I will listen and report back.

    • That made me think of the eponymous Edgar Wright film, @Martin Horsfield.

      Wikipedia clarified the connection:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Night_in_Soho

      “Last Night in Soho was originally titled Red Light Area, then The Night Has a Thousand Eyes. The final title originates from a 1968 hit single by the English pop band Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich and a conversation Wright had with filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, who was told by Allison Anders that “Last Night in Soho” was the “best title music for a film that’s never been made”.”

      Wight described the film as a love letter to 6os music.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Night_in_Soho_(soundtrack)

        • Last Night in Soho is a really decent attempt at a disquieting Hammer-style B movie. And the existence of the film and his quote proves the melodrama implicit in DDDBM&T’s song. There are loads of these: A Taste of Honey, Don’t Sleep in the Subway, Montague Terrace (in Blue), Kites.

          • To my shame, Martin, I’ve not seen the film. Or heard the song!

            Vielen Dank, Beatclub!

            It’s a cracking, very melodramatic song,

            ”

            “Last Night in Soho” is described in Colin Larkin’s Encyclopedia of Popular Music as “a leather-boy motorbike saga portraying lost innocence in London’s most notorious square mile”.[3] Songwriters Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley wrote the song with “a strong visual image” in mind, prompted by a comment made by Dave Dee.[4][5] The duo were keen to write a song about a British city to counter the many famous songs about cities like New York and Paris.[4] In contrast to the exotic themes of the band’s previous singles “Zabadak!” and “The Legend of Xanadu”, the song is set in Soho, an area in the West End of London renowned for much of the 20th century as a base for the city’s sex industry and night life.

            It concerns an ex-convict who attempts to go straight for the sake of his lover, but succumbs to temptation after reuniting with his hoodlum friends.[6] The final verse finds him heading for a prison sentence and bidding a regretful farewell to his lover.[7][8] Writer Rob Chapman has described the song as “a psycho-drama set in Gangland” with “a middle eight straight out of Lionel Bart and Joan Littlewood””(wikipedia)

            Now I know!

  53. Dawgnabbit, can’t see this anywhere on Spotify, but had to submit it anyway. An Australian release from 1969, you could easily imagine Barry Ryan giving it a red hot go….when the backing vocals come in at 2:28 it just heads for the cheddarsphere.

  56. We’ve had a great Portuguese diva, Amalia Rodrigues, but now it’s time for the Queen of Melodrama who for many years ruled the Arabic music world: Oum Kalsoum.

    And not only does Twang get Oum, he also receives a well-earned, Corsair Chicken Hamper. Let’s hope there is no melodrama about the delivery!

  57. Roy Orbison – Love hurts.
    Written by the great ’60s songwriter Boudleaux Bryant for The Everley Brothers but Roy’s version here is the properly melodramatic one.
    It was re-done in the ’70s by Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris. That’s probably the ultimate version.

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