I keep trying to figure out what sounds so evocative of Glenn Miller when I hear the Little River Band playing and singing Reminiscing. There is something in it that sounds like something from the Glenn Miller band, but I can’t quite spot it. Is it the orchestration? There are a couple stretches that I think are harmonically lifted from a Miller tune, but I can’t place it. There’s a pretty strong trope in there, but my ear isn’t good enough to ID it. Any help?
I don’t know why it sounds like Glenn Miller to you but he is mentioned in the lyrics (2nd verse):
BTW: This song was a favorite of John Lennon!
This composition is head and shoulders better than anything on the radio at the time. It was so different, it couldn’t help but stick out like a sore thumb. It’s instantly memorable. You’d have to be a pretty hard-ass person to dislike it. Its chords are not just majors and minors and sevenths. There are augmented and diminished and suspended chords, and ingenious key shifts, chord inversions and resolutions all over the place. I believe that they were trying to write something beyond the pop norm, that had a strong feeling of yesteryear. They succeeded!
I have to go listen to it now!
Yep. Goosebumps!
Is there a clarinet melody backed with a sax section anywhere? That was Miller’s identifier.
Right after the second line of the verse quoted above, there is a measure of sax section that comes in playing a tight-harmony riff. I can’t make out a clarinet in it, but there might be one. It’s the only sax part in the whole song.
The clarinet would have the lead, or melody part.
Yes, I know (being a Miller fan and collector). But here, the instrument in front sounds pretty much indistinguishable from a saxophone.
The opening notes of that song sound the same to me as the opening notes of the I Love Lucy theme song. It makes me crazy.
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samclem GQ moderator
I believe it. I wonder if “Grow Old With Me” was his attempt to write something in a similar vein.
I appreciate the comments here, and am glad to see that there are so many others who appreciate this remarkable little piece. I think the Glenn Miller lyric is an inside reference to its own quoting of Miller. The specific spot I’m referring to is in the second half of the first line of the bridge, where there’s a triplet figure. It sounds like it’s lifted directly from a Miller piece, but I just can’t place it. “‘Hurry, don’t be late, I can hardly wait,’ **I said to myself, ‘When we’re old…’” ** Is it from Moonlight Serenade? Argh.
Yes, that specific sequence of notes is from “Moonlight Serenade.” Intentional? Maybe.
Great, thanks. Yeah, as I was listening to it while writing this post, I thought I finally narrowed it down myself. It must be intentional. How could it not be? Remarkable piece. xo, C.