My band play a version of Blink’s ‘All The Small Things’ - in the breakdown we’ve begun inserting snatches of other songs.
It goes -
C (count of 8)
F (count of 4)
G (count of 4)
So far we’ve got Adam Ant’s ‘Prince Charming’ and various artists’ ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’ to shoehorn in there. We tried Wham’s ‘I’m your Man’ and ‘Unchained Melody’ but the count is wrong. There must be gajillions but we’re out.
So, any suggestions of a refrain from a well known song that follows that pattern? Key is unimportant; surprise factor moreso.
Thanks in advance.
MiM
Hmm… Blondie - The Tide is High? You’d have to slow it down a little… I’m sure I’ll think of some more later…
Maybe “We Go Together” from Grease? It’s actually C A- F G, but you could sing it over C C F G pretty easily.
Do You Love Me? By the Contours
Thanks Buster - dont know the Grease song(!) - will listen. Blondie and The Contours - it’s the timing…
Will try at tonights p
ractise.
Cheers
MiM
Off the top of my head, “007 (Shanty Town)” by Desmond Dekker (reggae tune) and “Joe’s Garage” by Frank Zappa, there must indeed be thousands of others.
Blitzkrieg Bop by the Ramones.
Night Moves … ? by Bob Segar.
Contours-“Do You Love Me?”
Also from Wikipedia:
I - I - IV - V. (Millie Small’s My Boy Lollipop (usually credited to Robert Spencer, Morris Levy and Johnny Roberts), Heartbeat (written by Bob Montgomery and Norman Petty for Buddy Holly), The Rolling Stones’ Get Off Of My Cloud (refrain), Paul Simon’s Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes, Van Morrison’s Madame George…)
These are top suggestions - if the timing was 4-2-2 0r 4-1-3 in The Ramones ; but its 8-4-4 and we can’t drag the lyrics/tune out for twice as long! Will listen to Zappa but not sure how well known that is in Cockermouth -the venue of our next gig.
Please keep them coming
MiM
I sang it over the breakdown at half speed and thought it worked okay. You said you wanted unexpected, right? You have to sing two lines of it though, for it to work, in my opinion. One line isn’t quite enough.
Probably about 75% (or more) of rock songs are some variation of the I-IV-V progression!
It’s a popular choice of three chords, but that’s overstating it by quite a bit. Maybe very early rock and blues-based rock would fit your statement.
You see - it’s not the progression that’s the issue - As I said in the OP - ‘I’m Your Man’ by Wham has the same progression - but the timing is off - same with ‘Tide is High’ ‘Do You Love Me’ and so on.
Perhaps I’m just being an arse, but the timing was what I was having difficulty with in finding songs that fit - not the chords. That’s why I posted.
Please be gentle with me.
MiM