Oh, and of course there’s “Good Vibrations”.
ETA: Be sure to click the “watch in high quality” link.
Sweet’s choruses often exhibit absurdly high-pitched harmonies, equal to or surpassing Roger Taylor’s famous shrieks on early Queen tracks.
I came here to mention him - but I was thinking about “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling”, which has some equally awesome high notes.
I can’t believe no one’s mentioned this yet, but two guys came to mind immediately, and neither appear. Maybe I don’t understand the question, but
Steve Perry - Journey - Don’t Stop Believin’, as well as a number of other songs sung by Perry.
Sting - The Police - Roxanne
lol @ “Lovin’ You” by Minnie Ripperton… but here’s another not rock song… Sheena Easton and Kenny Rogers remake of Bob Seger’s “We’ve got tonight”… her voice is so high pitched that dolphins beach themselves. Bats bump into trees. And martian’s heads explode (a la “Mars Attacks”)
The Darkness - I believe in a thing called love
Donald Fagen of Steely Dan doesn’t have as much range as some of his counterparts but the song Kid Charlemagne features the lines:
“Is there gas in the car?
Yes there’s gas in the caaaaaar!”
All these post and no mention of Steelheart’s “I’ll Never Let You Go (Angel Eyes)”?
That dude has an outrageous voice. Go, download, listen.
Clare Torry in The Great Gig in the Sky.
Just wanted to add,that part was sung by drummer Roger Taylor,not Freddie.
Almost all the songs that the Bee Gees put out from 1977 to 1979!
One that’s always been impressive to me is Skid Row’s I’ll Remember You (the highlight being at about 4:30 in this video.
Aerosmith/Janie’s Got a Gun
Aerosmith/Dream On
And a lot of other Aerosmith stuff.
Del Shannon
“Runaway”
In Maggie May, by Rod Stewart, there’s a very high note. Toward the end, after a guitar solo, he sings these two lines, separated by a bit of instrumental: “Maggie I wish I’d never seen your face” and “I’ll get on back home one of these days”. After one of those lines he sings “hoo hoo hoo” (or one polysyllable “hoo” if you prefer), and it’s quite high. I’ve never checked to see what note it is. I can sing most songs (even ones by females) on the radio by resorting to falsetto, but I can’t hit that note.
Yep, and in terms of exact pitch and clarity the ‘Galilleo’ parts are higher.
Freddie could do a lot, vocally, but it was Roger who delivered all of the truly high pitches.
Joe Cocker: You are so beautiful.
Great. Now I have South Park in my head.
“Do do do do do doo, aaaaahhhhhh! Aaaaahhhh! Aaaaahhh!”
As an amateur guitar player with no high end to his voice at all, I am frustratingly familiar with this category. Some quick thoughts:
“…Haaand!” (I want to hold yours) For famous, this has to be up there.
Most of the repertoire of Sam Cooke and fellow Motown-ers. (Just what pops to mind first is “Papa Was a Rolling Stone”, probably because of the contrast with the low notes, but easy to find more)
In that vein, Stevie Winwood, all of the early years (the beginning of “Gimme Some Lovin” if you need a specific set of notes; also the first notes of “Can’t Find My Way Home”)
Bono at the end of “One” (actually, even better was when I saw them during the Zoo tour. As an encore Bono sang “I can’t help falling in love with you” at some impossible-for-normal-males pitch. After a verse or two, he started singing it falsetto even higher. I needed a cigarette and change of pants after that, I’ll tell you.)
Actually, I meant to say, almost all the notes in every single that the Bee Gees put out during the Disco/Saturday Night Fever era : “Staying Alive”, “Night Fever”, “Love You Inside Out”, “How Deep is Your Love”, “Tragedy”, “Too Much Heaven”, etc. – all the notes were high!
I think that one of the albums that they put out during this time, “Spirits Having Flown”, featured only high-falsetto pieces, with not one song sung in regular pitch, despite the fact that Barry had a good baritone voice, and Robin had an distinctive tenor voice (it had an eerie, vibrato quality). Barry Gibb could sustain a very high pitch throughout an entire song, it seems. I really can’t think of a song that features one particular high note, since every note sung was well into the soprano range to begin with! Ha!