This is a (mild) rant, but I’m putting it in CS because I actually want to track down this song and throw money at it.
I must’ve heard the opening riff to this tune a hundred times in the past year. It’s in commercials, incidental music, announcements, anything that requires a catchy ten to fifteen second sound bite.
And what an infectious sound bite. Two trumpets playing almost but not quite exactly the same tune note for note. Staccato piano rhythm only marginally more complex than “chopsticks”. Enough cowbell to make Christopher Walken glow with pride. All wrapped up in the same ten to fifteen second snippet that everyone and their dog seems happy to inflict upon me, while denying me the basic human right to know what song it is.
What I want to do is identify it, so I can buy the album and listen to it, listen to the whole song, so I can see it has a middle and an end, so I can finally get it out of my head. I want to kill this song dead, gone completely out of my mind, at least for a few days, so I can get some sleep.
I heard it most recently in an old expisode of This American Life, episode # 192 “Meet the Pros”. If you click on the “Full Episode” link and fast-forward to about 11:30, you can hear the song starting up.
Mentioned at the bottom of that page is the Merle Travis song “I’m a Natural Born Gamblin’ Man”. Is this the song? I haven’t been able to track this one down, but reading reviews on Merle Travis leads me to believe that he is a country singer with some skill on the guitar. The song that is infecting my brain is more jazzy, with no guitar (that I can tell).
True that, but for about $10-15 I can get the whole album without any compression-induced noise.
Personally, I believe that $0.99 MP3s have their place, and it’s not with jazz. I’m no jazz snob, not by a long shot; some music styles sound much worse as MP3s, even at high bitrates. I’m still trying to rip my Flaming Lips CDs into something that sounds reasonably good.
Also, in my experience, a CD typically has a longer shelf-life than a bare MP3. I’ve accidentally erased far too many MP3s.
You might want to be aware that the “album” version brought up by that link seems to be a little different (softer, less clear sounding, less cowbell, etc.) than the version I remember from the radio and which may be the one you’ve been hearing. If there’s some way to check out the song before you buy it, it might be worthwhile to do so.
ETA: I still think the Masekela radio version was crisper, but then again I may be getting it confused with the Friends of Distinction version which also had lyrics. Don’t know for sure. Anyway, check it out if you can to be sure you’re getting the version you want.
It looks like there are several different Masekela albums and compilations, so there are probably a few different versions of the song out there. I never liked the version with lyrics, though.
