Another song ID thread - "touch and go"

Cafe Society
1

This popped into my head the other day, and it’s driving me crazy. All I can remember of the song is the phrase “touch and go”. And no, it’s not the Cars song.

What I remember of the song is that “touch and go” was spoken, not sung, with pauses between each word - “touch… and… go”. The vocal effect was that one that sounds like it’s coming from a cheap speaker or transistor radio. (Bonus points if someone can tell me what the name of that effect is.) I think that the spoken “touch and go” appeared near the end of the song. Possibly something played on the radio a lot back in the 80s?

2

Probably not it, unless you are confusing “radio” with “touch and go”, but Wall of Voodoo’s “Mexican Radio” uses that effect.

3

Right - not the correct song, but the correct vocal effect I’m thinking of. (I was even going to use that same song as an example!)

Here’s another song with that same kind of effect:

4

the main “Touch and Go” that pops into my head is the one on the Emerson Lake and POWELL album:

Is that it?

5

I don’t remember that exact phrase but Flash and the Pan used that spoken style and sometimes used that kind of filter. Probably their best know song is Walking in the Rain. They were active late 70s and early 80s.

6

This wasn’t a single played on the radio but otherwise it fits the description I think.

7

It’s not the ELP or John Foxx song. I’m not sure but I don’t think the title of the song is “Touch and Go”, but the phrase occurs in the lyrics, IIRC near the end of the song.

Nicest, Flash and the Pan is a good guess. In fact I have “Lights in the Night” on LP and double-checked to make sure it wasn’t a song on there that I was thinking of.

8

You can make things sound like that with some harsh equalization (EQ). Basically you remove almost all of the bass, low-mids, and high-treble with a parametric EQ. You are left with only a narrow band of frequencies.

It varies depending on exactly what you’re going for but I would guess the frequency range that remains is usually about 800 to 7000 Hz. I actually have my audio processing software open now and could play around and check it but I’m doing other stuff.

9

I’ve seen in replicated in live performance with a megaphone.