On the "tip of your tongue" (figuratively) for a long time

[kurumi]

Right out of college, I worked for a short time in an office where the music was piped in. Like XM or Spotify, no commercials, no announcers. I heard a cool song that sounded a little like George Harrison, with a chorus that went sort of like (chords if the song was in B major):

F# - F#m - E - B - G - F - C - F# - F#m - E - B - G - F - C - B

This was before Shazam. I didn't remember any of the lyrics. And, going through George Harrison's catalog, it became increasingly apparent it wasn't him.

17 years later I stumbled across the song again. Here it is. Has anything like that stumped you for a long time?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_F47TRI7pU

[hbelkins]

That album was yuuuuuge back in the 1970s.

And the first riff in the solo in "Baker Street" was ripped off from Alex Lifeson's solo in "I Think I'm Going Bald."

[frankenroad]

I was a huge Gerry Rafferty fan back in the day -- I have this album (literally a vinyl album) but have not owned a turntable in over 20 years.  I had forgotten about this song.  Thanks for the memories.

[OracleUsr]

Home and Dry is actually my favorite song from Gerry Rafferty.  Reminded me of my flight home from the Great Lakes when my now-wife (back then just girlfriend) and I had split up earlier in the year and gotten back together before the trip (side note:  I proposed to her later that year)

I had thought, speaking of Gerry Rafferty and the topic, that "Stuck in the Middle" by his band, Steeler's Wheel, had been sung by the Beatles, even though the actual group is Scottish, not English.

[kevinb1994]

Home and Dry is actually my favorite song from Gerry Rafferty.  Reminded me of my flight home from the Great Lakes when my now-wife (back then just girlfriend) and I had split up earlier in the year and gotten back together before the trip (side note:  I proposed to her later that year)

I had thought, speaking of Gerry Rafferty and the topic, that "Stuck in the Middle" by his band, Steeler's Wheel, had been sung by the Beatles, even though the actual group is Scottish, not English.

I forget, where in Scotland are they from? My family has roots in the Glasgow area, BTW

[kphoger]

I have plenty of these.  Back when I was a little kid, my dad used to record the Midnight Special public radio program onto cassette tapes, and we would often listen to them on driving trips.  A lot of those songs were by little-known performers.  That, plus the fact that I can usually only half-remember one or two lines, plus the fact that the artists tend to have near-zero online presence–makes it really difficult to figure out what song I have stuck in my head from 25 years ago.  Every so often, I'll get lucky and figure it out.  Most times, however, it's an exercise in futility trying to look it up.

[SectorZ]

That album was yuuuuuge back in the 1970s.

And the first riff in the solo in "Baker Street" was ripped off from Alex Lifeson's solo in "I Think I'm Going Bald."

I've known each of those songs for over 25 years and never caught that (clearly hear it though now). Probably known Baker St a lot longer since it was a radio hit.

[jakeroot]

My favorite example of this (not personal) was a story I heard on the CBC a few years ago. A woman in British Columbia heard a song on a Vancouver radio station in the mid-90s, and recorded the song on tape at the time (not great quality). After being featured in a story on CBC's "On the Coast", 22 years after her recording, someone found the song:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/musical-mystery-solved-on-the-coast-1.3327252

Ended up being a song from a small Toronto band.

[Mapmikey]

The one example for me that stands out is a song I heard a time or two when I was small (early to mid 70s) that had a part that went "ba-ba-ba-ba-bom, ba-ba-bom-bom-bom"

Never heard it again until it appeared in the background of a scene in Geoffery Rush movie Shine, which I saw a few years after its 1996 release.  zthe movie appearance wasn't much longer than that little bit I remembered but since imdb.com existed by the time I saw the movie, I could look it up.

It was "With a Girl Like You" by the Troggs, which was their 3rd best charting hit in the US.  Oldies stations only play their top 2 hits, Wild Thing and Love is All Around.

[webny99]

I have quite a few of these.

One that still stumps me, because it somehow escaped the entire internet, is a yodeling song, beginning with the lyrics:
"The day is dawning on a summer morning, not a feather in the southern sky..."

Try finding it with just that to go on. Impossible, as far as I know. I don't even know the author, only that it gets stuck in my head every once in a while and I used to listen to it all the time maybe 7-8 years ago.

[hbelkins]

Years ago, when I was in high school, I heard a song once on Lexington's WKQQ-FM, which at the time was an AOR and classic rock station but later became mostly a classic rock-only station. I only heard the song once, but it stuck in my mind. I remembered the name of it being "Five Knuckle Shuffle" but didn't get the name of the group that performed it.

Fast-forward to decades later, when the Internet became a thing. For years, Google and other search engines proved fruitless, but suddenly the results went live. The song was done by a group called Liar. I actually found the album it was on ("Set The World On Fire") available for download on Amazon, and it remains one of the few albums I've purchased digitally only and don't have a hard copy (album, cassette or CD).

[SEWIGuy]

Many, many years ago, 28 to be exact, my wife and I lived in West Bend, Wisconsin.  We used to take our two kids to this cheap pizza place because 1. it was cheap, 2. it was a good walking distance pushing a couple of strollers, and 3. it was fast.

A few years ago, we were trying to remember the name of the place.  It was driving us crazy for days and all sorts of Google searches wasn't geting us what we wanted.  One evening we had this exchange.

My wife:  Watch it be something simple...like Dick's.
Me:  Uh...I think that's it.
My wife:  Holy sh*t!!

https://onmilwaukee.com/dining/articles/dickspizza.html

[mgk920]

Is there anyone out there who does not consider Shazam to be the single greatest cell phone app that has ever been devised?



There have been numerous songs over the years that for at least a little while have completely stumped me (ie, High Enough by Damn Yankees), but as best as I know they have all since been identified.

Mike

[bandit957]

There's a song I've been trying to identify that was played on the radio around 1980 but I've never been able to identify it. I don't remember any of the words, just some of the music. If I was better at reading or writing music, I could post the letters for it. I don't want to humiliate myself by humming it and posting it on YouTube.

Also, around 1978-79, there was some Styx-like song where the first line was something about "the 21st century." I've never been able to identify it.

[1995hoo]

Is there anyone out there who does not consider Shazam to be the single greatest cell phone app that has ever been devised?

....

What is the app and what does it do?

(I guess I just answered your question.)

[jakeroot]

Is there anyone out there who does not consider Shazam to be the single greatest cell phone app that has ever been devised?

....

What is the app and what does it do?

(I guess I just answered your question.)

Surely you're joking. Have you been living under a rock?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shazam_(application)

"Shazam identifies songs based on an audio fingerprint based on a time-frequency graph called a spectrogram. It uses a smartphone or computer's built-in microphone to gather a brief sample of audio being played"

Probably one of the biggest leaps for music in decades.

[hotdogPi]

Is there anyone out there who does not consider Shazam to be the single greatest cell phone app that has ever been devised?

....

What is the app and what does it do?

(I guess I just answered your question.)

Surely you're joking. Have you been living under a rock?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shazam_(application)

I figured it out from context, but I would not have known otherwise.

[jakeroot]

WAIT WAIT WAIT

There are people without Shazam on their phones? Is it because you guys haven't heard of it? Or because you don't listen to music? Or what?

There are hermits amongst us.

[hotdogPi]

WAIT WAIT WAIT

There are people without Shazam on their phones? Is it because you guys haven't heard of it? Or because you don't listen to music? Or what?

There are hermits amongst us.

Siri does it without requiring an app.

[1995hoo]

Is there anyone out there who does not consider Shazam to be the single greatest cell phone app that has ever been devised?

....

What is the app and what does it do?

(I guess I just answered your question.)

Surely you're joking. Have you been living under a rock?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shazam_(application)

"Shazam identifies songs based on an audio fingerprint based on a time-frequency graph called a spectrogram. It uses a smartphone or computer's built-in microphone to gather a brief sample of audio being played"

Probably one of the biggest leaps for music in decades.

I'm looking at my age compared to yours and 1's. Why is it a surprise that I might not know about a particular app? I don't generally stream music, either, other than sometimes using a Logitech Squeezebox Touch here in my home office to play high-rez music I already own via a stereo system through a pair of Wharfedale speakers that are a lot bigger (and sound a lot better) than the small speakers attached to my PC (which are Boston Acoustics and are decent little speakers, but they can't compare to the Wharfedale's).

[Roadgeekteen]

Many songs in a foreign language that I hear can be hard to find again.

[jakeroot]

WAIT WAIT WAIT

There are people without Shazam on their phones? Is it because you guys haven't heard of it? Or because you don't listen to music? Or what?

There are hermits amongst us.

Siri does it without requiring an app.

Well after Shazam was invented. And only because Apple bought Shazam.

I'm looking at my age compared to yours and 1's. Why is it a surprise that I might not know about a particular app? I don't generally stream music, either, other than sometimes using a Logitech Squeezebox Touch here in my home office to play high-rez music I already own via a stereo system through a pair of Wharfedale speakers that are a lot bigger (and sound a lot better) than the small speakers attached to my PC (which are Boston Acoustics and are decent little speakers, but they can't compare to the Wharfedale's).

You gotta get past age as being some sort of handicap. I know just as many people in their 70s and 80s with iPhones as I do people my age. My grandfather is on his 3rd iPhone and he's 80. And yes, he has Shazam on his phone. And, I mean, you're not even 50. You're not old. I'm only half your age.

The purpose of Shazam is to identify music that you hear in the car, in public spaces, in restaurants, etc. Nothing to do with streaming music. It's extremely helpful, and basically supplants the days of calling a radio station to identify a previously-played song, or hoping that the restaurant you're visiting has actual soundtrack, and a manager can identify the song that just played. And so on. It's nothing to be stubborn about. It's literally a giant button that you press, and it identifies the music.

[1995hoo]

Why do you assume I don't have an iPhone? I have one, plus two iPads. My point in citing age was simply that I'd be less likely to be interested in using it the same way you are, which I don't think would be a surprise. One of the apps I found most useful for a good while was "Days From," a court deadline calculator (less useful now because Siri can tell you how many days is "x" days from a given date).

[jakeroot]

Why do you assume I don't have an iPhone? I have one, plus two iPads. My point in citing age was simply that I'd be less likely to be interested in using it the same way you are, which I don't think would be a surprise. One of the apps I found most useful for a good while was "Days From," a court deadline calculator (less useful now because Siri can tell you how many days is "x" days from a given date).

Now I'm even more confused!! This was from three years ago...

Forbes: Shazam Has Now Been Downloaded One Billion Times

The company revealed today that it has now been downloaded over one billion times by users around the world, easily making it one of the most downloaded apps of all time. Shazam has been quickly acquiring users over the years thanks mostly to the fact that it stood out from the crowded app space thanks to its specific use. It filled a void that needed filling at a time when nothing else even came close, and its user base has grown organically since then.

Not using it, or not having a use for it, is one thing. Not even having heard of it is something entirely different.

I have apps that are very specific, especially for GIS-related work, but Shazam appeals to everyone who listens to music. Which is basically everyone, no?

[Roadrunner75]

I was a bit late to the Shazam game, but I finally got it and it's great.  Now if only they had an upgrade that could identify songs from me humming them or poorly singing incorrect lyrics....