I’ve got to admit the truth, I am totally head over heels in love with ‘Miss Sweeney’ by Weezer and I was thinking about why I love it so much . While I really like the stilted anxious delivery of the verses and the rock out chorus; it’s the harmony in the middle 8 that gets me every time -
so then I realised how much I love singing well constructed harmonies. And thought of a few right away -
Peg by Steely Dan in the chorus where MM sings the b vox (not strictly a harmony but its my game) before the main vox.Bruno Mars’ Lazy Song in the chorus with the harmony singing below the main vocalSteel Panther’s Girl From Oklahoma NSFW!! the chorus and m8 despite it’s misogynistic content, it’s a great pastiche.
Difford and Tilbrook’s Hope Fell Down. I was at a Glenn Tilbrook solo show in '98 and he stopped playing this in the middle as he could hear me in the crowd singing the harmony, invited me up on stage to do it with him and we’ve been friends since.And of course Love Hurts by Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris.
So Dopers, what are your favourite harmony lines? Find you never sing the main melody when that bit comes on?
Please share!
In Shout by Tears for Fears, I always loved how the last line of the verse that goes “You shouldn’t have to shout for joy” vocally overlaps with the first line of the chorus that goes “Shout! Shout! Let it all out” in such a way that the word shout is harmonized to each sentence.
If that makes any sense, I’m not musically inclined so I don’t know the proper jargon to describe it.
M in M, that’s a great story! At least in their Squeeze songs, it seems that Difford and Tilbrook like to do straight octave harmonies, which is rather unusual.
Okay, a few of my favorites:
“Hard Times,” by Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings.
“I’ll Get You,” by The Beatles (B side to “She Loves You”)
“Faithless Love,” as sung by Linda Ronstadt and a male singer I don’t know the name of.
Not exactly harmony because I don’t think that the lines are superposed (except perhaps for brief moments) but I’ve always loved the way the back up singers repeat and expand on every line the singer sings in The Mamas & the Papas’ California Dreamin’.
I’ll go with If I Fell by The Beatles. Close, tight, practically two lead vocals vs. a lead + harmony. Everly Brothers-type, but John’s and Paul’s voices are different enough that the two strains stand out rather than fuse.
I feel like I can hear both the joyous music and the gears working behind the scenes as one shifts up a note while the other holds constant or they move through a technical line together.
For me, the best harmony line is from “Magic Man” by Heart.
It’s only one small portion of the song, but the way it’s presented, after a short keyboard solo with a phase shifter effect, is just incredible. Ann & Nancy absolutely nail it - it sounds like two angels singing. Perfection.
I’ve always liked Jackson Browne’s Running On Empty, particularly the chorus and the part where after he sings"running on" the back up singer sings “running bliiiiiiiiiiind” and hits this really high note. I remember watching them perform on SNL and she just mesmerized me for some reason.
The Eagle did some of the best harmonizing, with an obvious example being * Seven Bridges Road * though I prefer Witchay Woman.
Billy Joel does a heck of a job harmonizing with . . .himself ( I know it’s overdubbing but it sounds perty).
