Dancing In the Street

Just set the record straight, this song, Dancing in the Street, was sung by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, and reportedly reached no. 4 on one of the charts in the USA, and rose a little higher, I believe, in the UK.  Then it was covered by all sorts of acts, not least David Bowie and Mick Jagger.  Wikipedia has a full list of the artists who covered the song. 

The song was written by a trio of composers Marvin Gaye, (who incidentally did one of the cover versions), William Stevenson, and Ivy Jo Hunter. 

Ït was a culturally significant song, because it was used as a kind of Civil Rights anthem in the sixties.  (I wasn't around at that time, and can't attest to just how much of an anthem it really was.)

In many ways, it is a joyous song.  The theme of dancing in the streets has connotations of great celebration, in most English-speaking countries, even beyond the simple description of actually Dancing in the streets; the kind of universal rejoicing called for at the end of a war, for instance.  (Incidentally, there is a brilliantly sardonic song composed by Ed McCurdy, called Last night I had the strangest dream in which this phrase—Dancing in the Street—is invoked ɓrilliantly.)

I feel, however, that the song has a sort of static feel, as though it isn't going anywhere.  It doesn't need to; it's a celebration!

Why doesn't it move?  I think it has to do with the so-called flattened leading note.  The flattened Leading- Note makes the tune sound as if it's in a medieval mode.  Tunes in modes typically don't modulate to other keys, but it's the modulation that gives the feeling of motion.  By the simple expedient of putting the tunein a major key, it will immediately sound as though there the potential for movement.  On the downside, there will have to be movement now.

The Beatles

OMFG: What is wrong with this country, that they have to figure out who is the best at something?

I studied mathematics, and we have a subject (within mathematics, of course) where we study the whole concept of 'more than', and generally 'better than'.  (A more fundamental idea is that of 'better than, or just as good as'.)

Well, it was soon pretty clear that many things that are celebrated as 'the best' something-or-other simply did not make sense to receive that title.  It's not that they were not the best.  It just didn't make sense. 

The Beatles were an amazingly talented group.  They were excellent at live shows; in fact, they gave some of the most greatly enjoyed live performances on record.  There's a lot of news reports of the fabulous Beatles performances, though of course they were nowhere as well-attended as, say, Taylor Swift shows today.  But there were at least two problems that I can guess.

Firstly, they were never satisfied with the music quality of their live shows.  The records they made were put together with a lot of effort, often recorded up to twenty times, just for one song!  They listened to tapings of their live shows, and they were horrified at the poor quality.  I'm not saying they should have been satisfied; but John, in particular, hated how they sounded.

Secondly, those live shows took a lot of energy.  There was a lot of clowning around, and their traveling accommodations were primitive at the time, and they had to put a good face on it, for the next audience. 

Musically, they fit very well with each other.  They had been together since they had been around 17, 18; it isn't any surprise at all that they were impatient with each other by the time they were in their thirties.  At that point the only authority they knew was that of George Martin, their producer; when Paul imposed his perfectionism on them, it was all too much. 

Many faithful Beatles fans felt betrayed when the Beatles broke up.  But get serious; you couldn't expect those four men to have stayed together much longer.  I bless them for the magic they did give us. 

Archie

The Greatest Guitarist

Guitarists seem to be judged based on playing electric guitars.  And on playing melodies. 

I prefer to hear the picking sounds of Bob Dylan,  Paul Simon, Peter, Paul and Mary, and James Taylor.  There's no doubt that Jimi Hendrix and company enriched our sound world considerably.  But it seems just a matter of opinion whether it is they, or the guitarists who played principally acoustic instruments, who gave us most enjoyment.

Arch.