Help me identify this tune (possibly the theme from a movie)

Cafe Society
1

I would date it from around 1970. Very ethereal string piece, starts with two bold downstrokes on the violins. Has a kind of pulsating quality, more like a clock ticking than a heart beat:

SLASH! SLASH! Da-da-da. Da-da, da-da-da-da-da. Da-da.

SLASH! SLASH! Da-da-da. Da-da, da-da-da-da-da. Da-da.

Not from a science fiction movie. Maybe a romance/heist flick like The Thomas Crown Affair.

I heard it briefly on the radio a few days ago, and while I probably could have identified it immediately when I was younger, I now have a complete memory block and it’s driving me crazy!

2

Hmm, did the Kronos Quartet ever cover Louie Louie?

3

This is not your song, but it reminded me of Thomas Dolby’s Hyperactive (1984).

4

Tons of 70’s ethereal pieces like that, but the opening violins are throwing me. Maybe a Morricone piece? Doesn’t sound like John Barry, or Lalo Schifrin or Henry Mancini.

5

it’s not Beethoven’s Third, is it?

6

Oh, I think I know it.

But I just need you to hum it a little bit more.

Could you maybe hum away please?

7

Is it Danse Macabre?

8

None of the above. Not at all frenetic or macabre. More … pensive, if anything. Slow, like a clock ticking. The kind of music you might listen to in the dark in front of a lava lamp. (Well, I would, anyway.)

Definitely not classical. I would have recognized Beethoven’s Eroica instantly.

9

All the “slash, slash” makes me think of is Theme from Psycho (1960) - Shower Scene :smiley:

10

The first two notes of the above phrase sound like that, but slower and richer in tone. Not at all murderous, either. Maybe the kind of music you’d hear watching a spaceship as it sails through the galaxy or travels in time. But again, I’m pretty sure it’s not from a science fiction movie.

11

Stylistically speaking, does it sound anything like this?

12

Not really, no. Much slower and better paced. Also much richer.

13

Okay; using the Online Sequencer, I’ve come up with these:

G#5 G#5 F#5 E5 F#5 E5 C#5 C#5 D#5 E5 E5 A4 G#5 F#5

As far as I can determine with my limited musical knowledge, the beats are

ONE (rest); TWO (rest, rest, rest); three-and-four (rest). One, two (rest), and four and one-two (rest, rest, rest). Three, four.

Repeats.

There should be an app for this sort of thing; sing a few bars of the tune into your laptop or iPhone and it automatically finds the one you’re looking for (or a number of possibilities from which to choose). Whoever comes up with this will make a fortune!

And you heard it here first!

14

Well, there’s SongTapper

http://www.songtapper.com/public_html/

15

Soundhound does just that - I haven’t used it in a while so I pulled it up - and it got “America the Beautiful” from singing and “row row row your boat” from humming, but failed on two other ones that I am too embarrassed to mention.

16

I did not know of either of these.

Unfortunately, Soundtapper tells me my tapping is too short (I find that hard to believe), so I’ll give Soundhound a try.

17

Neither was much help, sad to say. :frowning:

18

Are you sure it’s not from The Thomas Crown Affair?

The only other suggestions I can make are The Ipcress Files

and

Boom!

19

Nope. None of the above.

20

Well, I now know exactly what it is, but I also cannot remember its name.

I keep thinking it’s “someone’s theme” from a war movie like The Killing Fields or Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, but neither of those are correct, it’s just a general feeling I have.

All the notes are bold strokes on violins, with a slow pace and long spaces between most notes.

Each dot is a beat.



Dum.....dum..dum......dum-dum-dum.....
dum..dum.....dum.dum-dum.....
dum-de-dum dum-de-dum dum-de-dum dum..dum........
dum.....dum-de-dum dum-de-dum dum-de-dum...dum