The Macca thread from @mousey made me revisit a great song of his, Wanderlust – and a particular aspect of it.
There’s a bit at 3:42 where he sings two vocal lines with different lyrics but they combine very sweetly. I find the new, second line overlapping the first deeply clever as it seems to convey a private frustration to counter the straightforward joyfulness of the main melody. A nice square meal.
“Oh where did I…go wrong, my love?
What petty crime am I found guilty of?”
Nearly the same trick is in She’s Leaving Home – the words of regret from the parents. Without that part, the song would still be good but those counter melodies and lines turn into the classic song that it is.
Bringing us bang up to date with Soft Cell, Besdsitter has this too. The plaintive new line and melody overlapping the established chorus :
“I’m waiting .., for something…I’m only passing time.”
I hope I’m making myself clear on this but I’m aware I might not be (wouldn’t be the first time). Basically, I’m not just after good vocal harmonies – the songs I am on about are the ones where the second vocal are adding a new perspective. Almost too much pers…no, no I mustn’t. Know what I mean?
Well, it’s another Beatles example, but I’ve Got A Feeling is a good one. Almost sounds like (in fact it probably was) both John and Paul separately attempting to write something Dylanesque (John’s portion in particular is practically a rip-off of the verse to The Mighty Quinn) then they just sang them on top of each other. It works spectacularly well, and just goes to show how good the Let It Be material could have been had they developed it properly.
As might be expected, Yes picked up the trick and ran with it, using it on all three tracks of Close To The Edge.
I’ve always loved the moment on Paul Simon’s Long, Long Day (2.17) when Patti Austin starts singing one vocal line (When I saw you standing there I said, “Hey, there’s a guy who needs a laugh”, that’s what I said to myself. What the hell, we’re both alone) while Paul Simon sings a different line (Slow motion, half a dollar a day) and then they come together when his line (Jukebox…) and her line (I’m just standing here…) both finish with “…in the corner”).
On Get Up by R.E.M., Stipe sings “Dreams, they complicate my life” while at the same time Mike Mills is singing “Dreams, they complement my life”.
God, I love R.E.M.
I never noticed that. Interesting.
Towards the end of “Flower Punk”, on The Mothers Of Invention’s “We’re Only In It For The Money”, the left and right channels each have a separate, simultaneous, rambling monologue about the Flower Punk’s hilariously banal vision of life in a rock’n’roll band. One of the album’s many highlights.
Of course REM do a lot of this.
Elsewhere Fountain of Salmacis is a Genesis example.
More recently Thom Yorke adds counterpoint to Polly Harvey on This Mess We’re In.
Slumming it down in 80’s pop land, T’Pau’s “Heart & Soul” does something like this – the verses are spoken word, then simultaneously there’s some very melodic singing until Carol let’s rip on the chorus, whilst the spoken word part continues.
Also, the Ting Ting’s do this to stunning effect on “That’s Not My Name” which at one point has 3 vocal lines going – the chorus, the “are you calling me” melodic bit, and the drummer has his own counterpoint vocal. From 3:18…
Here’s Broken Social Scene doing their bit of twin vocal tracking with the lovely Leslie Feist. Lord knows what they’re on about, mind.
The playout of They Might Be Giants Birdhouse In Your Soul has them fighting to be heard with two different lines delivered at the same time and same volume.
One sings the last lines while the other sings the opening lines
Knowing Me Knowing You By Abba? When the girls sing the “Breaking up is never easy I know” bit they boys do some spoken counterpoint underneath?
I like that.
Yes me too. That’s a great example.
I don’t know if this exactly fits the bill, but I like the way the lead vocal and the backing vocals on the Rich Kids “Ghosts of Princes in Towers” combine in the middle eight:
Midge Ure (lead vocals): “And it’s… ”
Backing vocals: “One!”
LV: “Remember number one.”
BV: “Two!”
LV: “And it’s true, that…”
BV: “Three!”
LV: “It’s free and easy that, but be…”
BV: “Four!”
LV: “… too long, it comes back to this.”
If Music Could Talk, by The Clash?
Yeah, that’s the one.
Strummer on one channel. Jonesy on the other.
Interzone by Joy Division – Ian duetting with himself and then singing two lyrics at the same time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgoBRn2HQDo
This of course started out as an aborted attempt to cover Nolan Porters ‘Keep on Keeping On’ at the request of Northern Soul DJ Richard Searling
Good call, though it’s actually Peter Hook singing the main melody with interjections from Ian Curtis.
Back to Macca: toward the end of Silly Love Songs there’s the bit where three vocal melodies sit on top of each other. “I love you”/“Ahhhh, he gave it all…”/“How can I tell you about…”
(It’s called counterpoint, btw. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterpoint )
Thanks @Drj – but I am talking beyond the pleasing effect of the two or more harmonies – it’s the lyrics too.
Yes R.E.M do a lot of this.
Fall On Me has three vocal tracks during the chorus.
Tis a thing of wonder so it is.
“Paradise by the dashboard light” by Meatloaf has some splendid double vocals from Meat and Ellen Foley. Another fave of mine is “Scarborough fair/Canticle” by Simon & Garfunkel with a great counter melody sung by Paul.
There are a few parts of Manfred Mann’s Earth Band’s rendition of Bruce’s Blinded By The Light that would fit the bill.
Anybody mentioned Escalator Over the Hill? A bit of “crosstalk” on that as I recall.
Any love for dEUS here?
Yes me. Great album.
There are two vocal lines in this track but it’s a stretch to describe them as melodies or, even, singing.
At around 2-56, Weller and Foxton diverge, as befits the lyric, on Thick As Thieves. I love The Jam, me.
Not exactly diverging melodies, but there’s a great moment 2m30s into Todd Rundgren’s ‘The Last Ride’ – his main vocal “Horizons east and skylines west / The moon, the sun and all the rest” is interlaced with his backing vocal in the left channel singing “The loving son, the faithful wife”, and in the right channel “The burnt-out wreck of a poor man’s life”, before all three vocal lines come together for “The Father, Son and Holy Ghost…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOk-UwssjZU
There are loads of these scattered throughout pop/rock’s rich tapestry.
Case in point. The various voices of Love don’t seem able to agree on which colour Arthur Lee should be painted, in “The Red Telephone”.
“Do you know the madman?
Yes, he lives up on the hill.”
https://youtu.be/pzZCy972cpo
With thanks to Leah Kunkel for the counter-song, David Crosby for the harmony and Leland Sklar for the bass.
Good one. This too, JB doubling himself on the chorus.
One of my favourite bass parts from Lee Sklar too.