Music trivia question (heard on a Crap from the Past episode)

Cafe Society
1

I listen to the weekly radio program Crap from the Past hosted by Ron “Boogiemonster” Gerber from a community radio station in Minneapolis. On the June 19 episode, he played 25 songs, and at the end of the episode, asked what the 25 songs all had in common. (You can see the playlist at the link, and you can listen to the 2-hour episode as well if you so desire.)

Nobody had any idea what the answer was. Therefore, on the June 26 episode, Gerber provided a few hints. The hints helped me come up with a guess. I emailed my guess to Gerber, and he said that I was very close to the right answer.

Any guesses? Tomorrow I will provide you with the hints, and we’ll see how many Dopers can come up with the answer.

2

Each one involves the singers repeating themselves purely for effect?

Like, immediately after saying “another one bites the dust,” he could belt out anything: he could rephrase it, or he could go off in a completely different direction, or whatever; but he instead just says “another one bites the dust” again.

As far as I can tell, every song on the list pulls that: you could follow up “the devil inside” with all sorts of interesting stuff, but they instead went with just saying “the devil inside” a second time. “Maybe tonight,” says Neil Diamond, like he’s about to go on; but, no, wait; he’d like to cover that again. “Maybe tonight, by the fire,” he adds.

And so on.

3

Good guess, but there are lots and lots of songs that make heavy use of repetition like this. There’s something more unusual about the songs in Ron “Boogiemonster” Gerber’s list. In fact, it took him two years to come up with enough examples to fill a two-hour episode.

4

Does it have anything to do with changing from past to present tense?

5

That’s not it either.

6

Here are the hints that Ron “Boogiemonster” Gerber provided on the June 26 episode:

You don’t need any prior knowledge about any of the songs–i.e., they don’t all have the same producer, they weren’t all recorded in the same studio, or anything like that. You can find the answer just by listening to the melodies/notes of each song.

7

They all seem like they would have something related by key signature. But I suck at music theory.

Very strange that he’s got multiple “versions” of several songs in there. Huh.

8

I’d say you’re lukewarm.

I’ll provide another hint later this evening.

9

They all have very strange minor sounding keys to them. They’ve got to have some specific rare chord in them or something.

10

Unfortunately that’s not it either.

11

Yeah I just did a looksee on the tabs for a few of the songs and while I don’t know what key they’re in, there isn’t a chord that sticks out or a chord that is in each of the songs.

12

Well, I’m officially curious now. “Key signature?”
Maybe they all start in the bass clef or something?

13

Do they all slip into waltz time at some point?

14

The key signature doesn’t change in many (or any) of the songs. The answer also doesn’t have anything to do with the time signature.

15

Wild stab: the narrators in each song are addressing more than one other person.

16

I only listened to a few, but they all jump up a full octave within the songs.

17

That’s it! (At least that was my answer, and Ron “Boogiemonster” Gerber said that I was very close.)

18

There must be something more to the answer, only because I find it hard to believe it would take someone two years to come with 25 songs where the singer jumps up an octave.

19

More specifically, the octave jumps are the whole verse jumping up an octave, not just a random part of the song.

20

And then have to pad the show by playing four versions of the same song. Really?