New Monday #85
Happy Monday, all!
This started out differently, but then I went down a damn rabbit hole. For all of you who write me that it’s annoying that New Monday goes all over the place... I don't know what to tell ya. Good creativity is all over the place. Ideas are all over the place. There’s so much to know, so much to learn, so much to hear.
On a plane in 1975: Part 2
We’re back on the plane I was on in 1975, listening to the in-flight music and having my taste in music redesigned...
Love Will Keep Us Together was the biggest song of 1975, topping the charts and winning a 'Record of the Year' Grammy. It rocketed The Captain, keyboardist / producer, Daryl Dragon, and Tennille, singer / keyboardist, Toni Tennille, to worldwide recognition. They even had a network TV show for two years. It sucked, but Love Will Keep Us Together certainly didn’t.
The song was written by Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield. In stark contrast to the simplistic chart-topping pop music these days, with the same four chords and a melody spanning a fifth, Love Will Keep Us Together had a playful, complex structure that skips from major to minor all over the place, with multiple breaks, a bridge in a different key and a modulation on the vamp out. All while remaining supremely memorable. Steal the bridge, or steal the wonderful moment where it switches from two measures of G major to two of G minor to a D and then a D augmented.
When was the last time there’s been bubblegum pop with an augmented chord?
The song was produced by The Captain, who played everything but the drums, which were handled by Hal Blaine. Dragon was a monster of a keyboardist and arranger. He met singer Toni Tennille while the two were on tour with The Beach Boys. The song was cut at Paramount Records, which was, and still is, a huge studio complex in Los Angeles.
Paramount was built by Brian Bruderlin, brother of actor James Brolin (father of Josh). It’s likely one of the first sessions done there was for Jimi Hendrix, and the studio has been continuously busy with tons of television and film work, as well as A-list musicians from Aerosmith, to The Jackson Five, to Alice in Chains, to Justin Timberlake. Best guess on the console is that it was a Bob Bushnell built API console, but it could have been a Neve. The Captain and Tennille built their own studio after their commercial breakthrough, Rumbo Recorders, and equipped it with a Neve. Rumbo became a major commercial studio. 'Appetite for Destruction' was cut at the studio that Love Will Keep Us Together built. By the way, Rumbo had 650 square foot control rooms. Jumbo!
Let’s listen, and bear in mind my catchphrase, “Unified in its diversity, diverse in its unity,” because for this song, that’s exactly how it works.
Love Will Keep Us Together
There’s a keyboard bass center, doubled with a farty horn patch to the right that's the main hook of the song. There’s also an octave-up double of the farty sound that's panned to center.
Check out the keyboard bass part. It’s awesome, the kind of part Paul McCartney would envy.
The barroom piano track is to the right. It sounds like a prepared piano—a tack piano (thumbtacks pounded into the felt of the hammers). There’s another piano on the left that’s more loose and improvised. At the very beginning, this part comes in with a flourish—listen for the click of a ring against a piano key at the end of it, right before the vocals kick in.
There are all kinds of fun squirps and squiggles—Moogs or ARPS. The song is DENSE with keyboards, panned all over the place. I originally thought this was a 16-track, but now I think it’s 24. There’s just too much going on.
Toni Tennille did all the vocals. The lead is doubled so frickin’ tightly it’s unbelievable. Her multiple background vocals weave in and out of the keyboard parts. Listen for vocoder/voice parts on the “Stop! 'Cause I really love you” moments, and again, listen for the panning and the handoff, as different parts rise and fall in the mix. It’s always interesting.
The drums, too, work in and out of the keyboards and vocals, fills leading your ear to a riff. Blaine thought he was cutting drums for a demo, so what was there for him to work with at those initial sessions? A guide vocal and a piano? Nothing and just putting the drums down first? I’m guessing Daryl Dragon had most of the song mapped out in his head and somehow communicated that to Hal Blaine, and at the same time, Hal Blaine was a supremely intuitive and musical player, hence why he was the session drummer at this time.
The drum sound... kinda sucks. It's dry, dead sound, with hazy stereo imaging. There’s no room on it. One can almost hear the 70s shag carpeting of the booth it was in. Stereo imaging, which is lopsided to the right, suggests kick, snare and spaced pair overhead mics. Most of the kit is to the right, except for a crash on the left, which is what a wide panned pair sounds like. There is a loud smack off to the left that sounds like a really dead tom. I think there’s a tambourine tucked in somewhere back right. And then there are the claps on the vamp out, which wander around—it sounds like a couple of people gathered around a stereo pair of mics and dicked around roughly on time, breaking into applause and cheering when Tennille sings, “Sedaka is back..."
Daryl and Toni were phenomenally talented people. Here’s a video of The Captain and Tennille live, dropping a killer version of the song with perhaps drummer Jim Gordon. Just the three of them. Playing live on television. Flawless.
Neil Sedaka’s Take
When the record company played Love Will Keep Us Together to Neil Sedaka, his jaw dropped. He was blown away. He recorded the song himself in 1973, but his version is... deeply odd.
He recorded it with the guys from 10cc, wonderfully imaginative writers and musicians from whom we’ll hear more soon enough. 10cc and Neil Sedaka both knew how to make hits, but they missed the ball on this one: they glommed up a pop tune with all sorts of strange string parts and percussion. The main bass part sounds like a string bass played high up the neck. Listen for a mandolin, tuned wood blocks, a guiro, and what sounds like a banjo. Not to mention organs, moments of operatic vocals, a couple of moments of half-time triplets. The overall effect is like a soundtrack from an animated movie. A bunch of beavers making toys for Santa Claus. And the topper: Neil Sedaka’s high-pitched, feminine vocals. Crazy stuff, and totally worth a listen.
Neil Sedaka’s Love Will Keep Us Together.
Sedaka recorded this marvelous mess at Strawberry Studios, which was owned by the guys in 10cc and was their home base. A lot of very creative work was done at Strawberry. Paul McCartney, the Smiths, the Ramones and... Joy Division.
Joy Division Tears Us Apart
Joy Division recorded, in 1980, at Strawberry Studios, the song that put them on the map, Love Will Tear Us Apart Again.
Hmmm... Love Will Keep Us Together, Love Will Tear Us Apart... hmmm...
There are rumours that one inspired the other, if not in lyrics or melody, perhaps as a fun, tongue-in-cheek goof with the title. But as long as we’re thinking about love keeping us together, let’s let it tear us apart.
Love Will Tear Us Apart Again
And that is that. No lesson this week, but I do urge you to listen to all the songs presented here a few times. Really squint down and HEAR. Take notes on what you’re hearing. This will do wonders for your critical hearing and add tons to your idea library.
Warm regards,
Luke