I had one of the music channels on last night and was amazed at how often I knew exactly what song was coming on by the very first note. It got me to thinking how many songs I think I could do that with. Here’s what I came up with:
“Kiss On My List” by Hall and Oates
“Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin
“Let’s Go Crazy,” “Purple Rain,” and “Little Red Corvette” by Prince and the Revolution
“I Feel for You” by Chaka Khan
“Won’t Get Fooled Again” by The Who
“Hell’s Bells,” “Back in Black,” and “You Shook Me All Night Long” by AC/DC
Back when I was in junior high was an a bunch of musicians visit for an assembly - at the end of the event they asked if anyone would attempt to identify a song with a single note. One kid dared to do so, and darned if he didn’t do it - “The Theme to Close Encounters”
There’s probably a lot (if we’re talking recorded music), but of the top of my head, for distinctive first chords/note “Hard Day’s Night” by the Beatles would have to be up there.
Don’t know that it’s the very first note because the second note is the eighth right on top of it but Gary Jules’* Mad World * from Donny Darko.
A guy at work has a ringtone that only ever plays two notes before he answers. I asked him only the other day if it is Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros Ramshackle Day Parade. Not only has he never heard of the song he has never heard on the band or even Joe Strummer.
This sort of thing came up about 5 years ago and the clear consensus winner of “songs the most people can identify in one note” is Also Sprach Zarathustra.
I’ve got the Monday Night Football theme as my ringtone (the instrumental one, not the hellish “Are you ready…” they play now), and I think you might be surprised by how many people could identify that immediately.
We’ll be driving in the car and every so often my hand will shoot out to the radio to change the station. My husband will ask me why and I will tell him “Fleetwood Mac” or “The Eagles” or some other band I despise. He’ll ask me how I could even tell, as the song hadn’t even started yet.
Oh, I can tell. I can hear the fuckers warming up.
Heh, at the DC for the company I work at, the blackberry carried by the tech on duty had a tone that was identical to that ping, and sometimes the alerts would come in at the right frequency to mimic the start of the song. They eventually changed it, but when I had to be there for work, I kept expecting this thirty minute song to start.
Additionally, I am pretty sure I can id these on the first note:
Wooly Bully
Hung Bunny by the Melvins
I Heard Her Call My Name by the Velvet Underground