When I first heard the Tokens’ “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”, I was surprised that the primary vocal is sung almost entirely in falsetto. It sounds to me like the (male) lead singer is rather obviously trying to impersonate a woman, and I didn’t think such a thing would fly in the morally conservative America of 1961. Which leads me to some questions:
Was the 1961 Tokens cover the first falsetto rendition of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”, or was it always meant to be sung that way? (According to Wikipedia, the song dates back to 1939, and was recorded many times before the Tokens covered it.)
Were the Tokens ever publically criticized by the conservative or religious segment of the population for their effeminate singing in this song?
What other popular songs, before or after 1961, are sung primarily in falsetto?
People have been composing music meant to be sung in the extreme upper range of men’s voices for the past, well, as long as we have records of it… 600 years? For a long time, women weren’t welcome to sing in christian churches, so the upper parts were sung by boys or men whose voices hadn’t changed much. More recently, we’ve seen barbershop quartets having countertenors, Chris Cross, and the Beach Boys all using male leads in the upper register.
yes, I know, the top line isn’t the lead in barbershop. Sue me.
1.) I don’t believe it was meant to be sung falsetto, and as far as I know (which admittedly is little) theirs is the first such renditon.
2.) Mostly songs by African-American R&B or group singing. It seems that is a tradition derived initially from what This site refers to as the “falsetto wail” or “falsetto leap”. I think it was common in the Doo Wop style for the melody to be sung in a falsetto voice. This siteseems to support my theory.
3.) Following up on my statement above, I would look for Doo Wop recordings and This site gives some excellent representations of it.
You also have to remember that the crazy “right-wing” people regularly enjoyed “Uncle Miltie” cross dressing on his program.
Also, I don’t believe falsetto was an attempt to imitate a woman, but was instead a tradition that groups like The Tokens co-opted from black culture. It is still a popular method of musical expression among Black artists.
Frankie J’s cover of “More Than Words” and the original version are both sung in falsetto. I’d almost call Coldplay’s Yellow falsetto too. James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful” reaches falsetto.
It was, in some capacity, considered sexy or titillating - when Brian Wilson would hit those notes in songs like “Fun Fun Fun” or “I get around” in live and television performances, the girls in the audience would go crazy.
Predating this, Frankie Valli seemed to get a lot of mileage out of a sort of comical, whiny falsetto on songs like "Sherry Baby, " “Walk like a man,” “Big girls don’t cry,” and “Rag Doll.”
