tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552611225113381497.post1141364641711687090..comments2023-09-06T02:38:57.320-07:00Comments on Music Sounds Better With Two: ...In His Hands: The Edwin Hawkins Singers: "Oh Happy Day"Lenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04912525192415808946noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552611225113381497.post-89978347769363524112012-07-12T17:58:54.026-07:002012-07-12T17:58:54.026-07:00OK, thanks for all the history on this track, and ...OK, thanks for all the history on this track, and also for the links to current gospel. Hearing this track for the first time only a few days ago (on a wonderful album compiled by Nick Cave of his influences/faves) convinced me that I'd stumbled across one of those hidden chords that retrospectively makes sense of a lot of the music I've been hearing my whole life. I hear its echoey piano intro in Imagine but also in the Good Times sitcom's opening and closing credits themes that I love so much. I hear its massed voices in the ending of Hair's Let The Sunshine In. And so on. It's everywhere.<br /><br />I'm sure you're right that this record must have hit the spot for a lot of people in 1969 in part as a welcome respite from genuinely frightening social turmoil and events (although the Sharon Tate/Manson murders were just around the corner, and this was also the peak freak out time about the Zodiac killer in CA, so importantly the real world shocks kept coming and coming...). On the Cave edited compilation I have the track after Oh Happy Day is Gainsbourg and Birkin's Je T'aime from later in 1969. Another surprise massive hit that speak brilliantly and comfortingly to us all even now. I think these tracks are quite alike in conjuring surprising, ecstatic musical spaces beyond politics. (Elvis magnificent 'In the Ghetto' which you foreshadow at the end works a little differently I feel - Elvis is taking political sides there and the music's correspondingly a little more conventional.) All of this must have been <i>very</i> welcome at the time.<br /><br />One correction: You describe 'Oh Happy Day' as being just two chords. But that's wrong, while there's a lot of leaning on two chords throughout, a fresh seventh chord first slips in on the D of the second background vox OHD, and subtle modulation progresses from there (so it's not the same two chords being leaned on throughout). Things explode if you tab it out carefully: <a href="http://www.e-chords.com/chords/edward-hawkins/oh-happy-day" rel="nofollow">this tabbing</a> of it counts 31 separate chords!<br /><br />I learned to play Imagine recently and was surprised to discover that it packs 10 chords in its 3 minutes (twice as many as, say, Coldplay's The Scientist does in 4m 30s). It sounds so simple, but really isn't!<br /><br />It occurs to me that not only are these stately gospel-ish songs from the 1969-1971 period more complicated than they look/sound, they're also just more musically fluent and accomplished than the post-U2, stately rock songs that are their offspring at least on one level.plaguehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04079889317620618164noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552611225113381497.post-2720832636706066352012-07-12T04:57:11.953-07:002012-07-12T04:57:11.953-07:00Thanks so much, very happy you enjoy this posting ...Thanks so much, very happy you enjoy this posting - I look forward to your comments!Lenahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04912525192415808946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-552611225113381497.post-1796465836197267622012-07-12T03:43:33.325-07:002012-07-12T03:43:33.325-07:00Magnificent record that I only recently heard for ...Magnificent record that I only recently heard for the first time. Almost can't believe it made it into the charts, let alone all the way to #2. Wonderful write-up Lena! I'll have to read through your piece a few more times to see whether I have anything substantive to add in comments, but I thought I should leave a preliminary 'Bravo!' right now. It's insane that such a thoughful piece of writing about such a wonderful record should have no comments!plaguehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04079889317620618164noreply@blogger.com