So over the Christmas holidays, I find myself listening to Louis Armstrong’s 'Zat You Santa Clause? (Which is a great tune, by the way, but that’s neither here nor there.)
In the song, Satchmo is terrorized by a late night visitor who may (or may not) be Santa Claus.
The song features a musical phrase which tells us that this is supposed to be a scary story. The four notes hit by Armstrong on the lyrics “but I pause because” are part of a larger musical phrase that used to be a common feature of old scary movies and cartoons. Musically-inclined dopers may recognize the tune and know immediately what I am talking about.
Two questions:
Can anyone point to other examples of this phrase being used? I seem to recall The Clash used it in the intro to one of their songs, but I can’t find it. Also looking for older examples, containing the complete phase.
What is the origin of this phrase? Of what musical piece was it originally a part?
(What made me think of this question is: I found online another version of 'Zat You Santa Claus? in which the singer played with the melody and in doing so changed those four notes, which really screwed up the song by making it less ominous and foreboding. The singer in that version was relatively young, and possibly had never been exposed to the old movies and cartoons which used to feature the musical phase in question, so she probably had no idea she was screwing with an important musical reference in the song.)
The Clash song you’re thinking of is [This Is Radio Clash](1. Can anyone point to other examples of this phrase being used? I seem to recall The Clash used it in the intro to one of their songs, but I can’t find it. Also looking for older examples, containing the complete phase.).
I won’t embarrass myself by trying to explain this in very exacting terms, but it seems to me that what’s going on is simply a series of ascending notes that ends without resolving back to the dominant, thus creating a sense of tension.
Also, in A Summer Place (1960), there’s a tight shot of Troy Donahue, as he is talking about consummating his relationship with Sandra Dee, and the background music–played very lightly, and several times–is either this piece or something very, very similar.