doo-wop songs where the singer starts talking

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I get the impression - mainly from latter-day songs that "pay tribute" to doo-wop/'50s music - that it was once known for the singer to pause toward the end of the song for a few bars of direct address ("Girl... you treated me real bad...," etc.), while the band doo-wops on behind him. How common was this, and what are some good examples of actual songs from the '50s where this happens?

― Sam J. (samjeff), Monday, 12 May 2003 19:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Ink Spots had this down to a science. On 'I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire', when he begins his monologue he sounds strangely literal, and one feels relieved.

― jleideck, Monday, 12 May 2003 19:05 (twenty-two years ago)

it's found in various pre-50s music, cole porter spoken verses, vaudeville/music hall jokes, hillbilly interjections, and of course the blues, so i don't think it really became any more common in the 50s. glancing at the rhino doo wop boxes 1 & 2's track lists to refresh my memory, some couple hundred tracks, i don't think it happens more than a half dozen times.

i think most parodies derive from elvis presley's that's when your heartache begins, an egregiously maudlin use of the spoken third verse with the jordanaires oohing in the background. it was a #1 in the late fifties and was one of his first love it or hate it mock-operatic songs.

― mig, Monday, 12 May 2003 19:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Velvet Underground "I Found a Reason."

― Mark (MarkR), Monday, 12 May 2003 20:44 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, that's one of the "tribute" songs that got me wondering about this. That, and all those songs on "Freak Out" ("I waxed my car for you... I bought a new pair of khakis..."), plus the "Stranded at the Drive In" number in "Grease."

― Sam J. (samjeff), Monday, 12 May 2003 21:18 (twenty-two years ago)

See Lester Bowie's cover of one of those tunes, where he starts doing the talking bit with his trumpet!

― Jordan (Jordan), Monday, 12 May 2003 21:19 (twenty-two years ago)

not Elvis, the Ink Spots, that's specifically who Spike Jones made fun of in 1945 w/"You Always Hurt the One You Love." the device goes back to them at least, probably further back but I can't think of any examples right now.

search: The Medallions' "The Letter," whose "words of dismortality" speech-break is one of the most bizarre things I've ever heard

― M Matos (M Matos), Monday, 12 May 2003 23:09 (twenty-two years ago)

'all you guys get to say the good stuff, all i say is...'

'rang tang ding dong (i am the japanese sandman)' - the cellos!

by far the most nuts doo wop song i've heard

― Affectian (Affectian), Monday, 12 May 2003 23:16 (twenty-two years ago)

also, Johnny Cymbal's "Hey Mr. Bassman" ("No, it's ba-da-de-ba de-de-badedeba")

― M Matos (M Matos), Monday, 12 May 2003 23:28 (twenty-two years ago)

my god they live. in a way. (no original members of course)

http://www.theinkspots.com/

this band's been a real help to me.

I love how every single song has the exact same happy trails guitar intro, just in a different key. you can have a lot of fun playing the first 2 bars of every track.

― jleideck, Monday, 12 May 2003 23:51 (twenty-two years ago)

my god they live. in a way. (no original members of course)

Are they led by a couple who worship color?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 13 May 2003 00:33 (twenty-two years ago)

matos, did the mills bros do it in the same style as the ink spots?

and what about gilbert and sullivan? i'm not that familiar with that stuff but i can easily imagine spoken verses with hummed backgrounds happening that far back.

i mentioned the elvis tune cos i think it's the worst offender - it is of course an ink spots song and tribute - and he did this on several of his huge ballad hits, so i imagined lou reed and frank zappa, guys who loved black r&b and doo wop, were probably making fun of elvis and other white guys who sort of schmalzed it up when they did it. not that lou was really making fun in that song, it's pretty shirt on sleeve i think.

also, don't forget about that track near the beginning of the beatles anthology 1, where lennon starts talking about his baby's national health eyeball. that's a pretty early example [1961 i think] of parody of the spoken verse.

― mig, Tuesday, 13 May 2003 18:10 (twenty-two years ago)

you walrus hurt the one you love.

― jleideck, Tuesday, 13 May 2003 20:10 (twenty-two years ago)

"Are You Lonesome Tonight?" is a good example of this, but I don't know how much its form is derived from doo-wop and how much is derived from bel canto pop, which also frequently involves little recitations in the middle of songs. (Which in turn is a feature of operetta.)

The doo-wop thing might be in part from the church; numerous recorded sermons took almost the opposite form, a wealth of preaching punctuated by occasional uproarious singing. The singing-preaching form was considerable more complex (not necessarily more open-ended, though it might appear that way on first discover) than the doo-wop form (doo-wop being one of the most restrictive forms of pop music*) but I suspect a direct relation nonetheless, seeing as so many d-w and soul singers got their start in gospel groups.

*not a criticism

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 13 May 2003 20:18 (twenty-two years ago)

The Ink Spots are faboo. It's funny how listening to a bunch of their songs in a row quickly reveals the very formulaic (albeit glorious) character of their music. Heard in the 1940s hit parade (more expansive than today's of course) it must not have been as apparent, or as potentially off-putting.

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 13 May 2003 20:20 (twenty-two years ago)

(My secret* ambition is to write a book on the formal characteristics of Afro-American sermons with special attention to the place of singing in both sermons and services.)

*oops.

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 13 May 2003 20:28 (twenty-two years ago)

It's funny how listening to a bunch of their songs in a row quickly reveals the very formulaic (albeit glorious) character of their music. Heard in the 1940s hit parade (more expansive than today's of course) it must not have been as apparent, or as potentially off-putting.

in a jukebox context it merely meant that you knew it was an ink spots song within five seconds of the needle hitting the vinyl, it's the exact same guitar intro every time. over the course of an album length compilation, the identical form of each song just sends me deeper into a wonderful trance. oh 'java jive'.

never warmed to the mills brothers. maybe I've only heard the later stuff.

― jleideck, Tuesday, 13 May 2003 20:36 (twenty-two years ago)

If any artist dared use a "signature" that brazen in their singles (or whatever passes for singles nowadays) they would be ripped apart by critics! And perhaps rightly so, as we will likely be subjected to a new 50 cent single more often in a day than 1940s/50s audiences would have been subjected to a given Ink Spots single. Also people create songs with the album context in mind, so diversity is important.

Ooo I know what I'm listening to when I get home.

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 13 May 2003 20:46 (twenty-two years ago)

back then, record labels threw many more singles into the market than they do now, often more than one a month, whatever stuck. with many different songs circulating in jukeboxes at the same time, it was a strength to have a recognizable formula through those songs.

but I know you meant 'subjected to', i.e. these days we're subjected to that one song 30 times as often. styles change faster and artists who stay in one place are easy targets for critics. (I could also mention the steep rise in the number of 'music critics' angrily calling out any trend they've personally overdosed on as something 40's audiences didn't have to deal with...)

the neptunes are bigger stars now than half the people they produce because they carry their presets from track to track.

― jleideck, Tuesday, 13 May 2003 21:18 (twenty-two years ago)

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