Roy Orbison and the miracle of records [August 16, 1992]
Plus: John Secada, K.W.S., Tori Amos, and Throwing Muses
Greetings, Time Travellers! đ Welcome back to the week of August 16, 1992.
đ° In the news this week: Sting gets married to his long-time partner, Trudie Styler. Everyone makes the same joke about how the ceremony last 72 hours. Honestly, you mention youâre into tantric sex one timeâŠ
đœïžBig new movie in cinemas is misunderstood classic AlienÂł. David Fincher's feature film debut flops so hard that his career seems to be in doubt. Wonder what became of himâŠ?
đșOn TV, Emma Bunton makes her telly debut as a violent mugger on EastEnders. Maybe she should have been Scary Spice.
đ¶ Number One song in the UK Top 40 is still âRhythm Is A Dancerâ by Snap! Further down the charts, we have:
This weekâs Number 24: âCryingâ â Roy Orbison & k.d. lang
Did you know that Roy Orbison recorded âCryingâ in one take?
This might not be true. I thought I heard this a few years back, but now I canât find a source, so Iâm probably thinking of a different song.
But it sounds believable, doesnât it? The original version of âCryingâ is so cracked and bruised and raw and beautiful that itâs hard to imagine Orbison perfecting his delivery over multiple takes.
Listen to it again and imagine youâre there in Sun Studios in 1961, slowly melting in a sultry Memphis summer, watching the band getting ready to play. Someone counts off, and then the drummer launches into that kind of rumba beat, almost a military tattoo, Bah-bah-bum-bum-tss. Then Roy Orbison, the saddest man in rockânâroll, opens his mouth and sings, âI thought that I was over youââŠ
Maybe he nails it on the first take, maybe it takes a few attempts. But boy, does he nail it.
My favourite moment in the songâand one of my favourite moments in music historyâis the pause in the first verse. The song starts briskly and picks up momentum as Roy sings:
Then I saw you last night
You held my hand so tight
When you stoppedâ
Suddenly, everyone stops playing. Complete silence, as abrupt as a car crash.
It only lasts for a quarter of a second, but it perfectly recreates the feeling of your heart skipping a beat, as might happen when the person you love touches your hand.
Then the devastating reveal:
âto say, "Hello"
You wished me well
A false dawn. Sheâs just shaking his hand out of politeness. She has moved on; he has not. We have all been there, and we all know how much it sucks. The greatest pop songs speak to universal emotions.
âCryingâ has been covered dozens of times since then, and a lot of artists donât bother with the pause. Don McLean sails through the line. The Spanish-language version in Mulholland Drive is a capella with lots of reverb, so it wouldnât even be possible to pause. Even Orbison keeps singing through the pause in some later versions.
That perfect delivery of âstoppedâ happened only one time, in Memphis on June 26, 1961. When you listen to that record, youâre revisiting a particular time, a particular place. Youâre hearing Roy Orbison the way he sounded on that exact day.
Sometimes, I think we arenât grateful enough for the miracles surrounding us.
Think about it. Isnât it just mind-boggling that itâs possible to hear a performance from 61 years ago? Itâs years later and thousands of miles away and Roy Orbison is dead, and none of that can prevent you from listening to him sing âCryingâ any time you want.
We can capture voices and replay them at will. If thatâs not a miracle, what is?
The very first sound recording happened in 1860. A French inventor by the name of Ădouard-LĂ©on Scott de Martinville was trying to unravel the mysteries of the human ear when he discovered a method for transcribing soundwaves.
Martinvilleâs recording device was called a phonautograph. It consisted of a membrane that reacted to movements in air and a delicate needle dipped in soot. When a sound caused the membrane to vibrate, the needle would scratch out a line that roughly corresponded to the soundwave.
Of course, there was no way to replay thisâyou were just left with a piece of paper covered in soot. But, in 2017, researchers used the phonautographâs output to recreate a piece of audio, allowing us to hear the recording.
The sound was Martinville himself, singing âAu Clair de la Luneâ:
Every single sound made by humans prior to 1860 is now lost forever. Sounds like Ciceroâs speeches or Mozart playing pianoâall gone. The past is silent, forever.
But we donât live in the past.
We are lucky enough to live in a time where sounds can be preserved. We have the I have a dream speech and âHopelessly Devoted To Youâ and the noise of connecting to dial-up internet. We can listen to them any time we want. These sounds will outlive us.
And you can make your own sounds! You could pull out your phone right now and record yourself singing âMary Had A Little Lambâ, and itâs entirely possible that your great-great-great-grandkids will play it to their kids.
(Incidentally, in 1885, an audio engineer did try to record himself singing âMary Had A Little Lambâ. Something malfunctioned and caused him to swear, which is how he became the first known person to say âfuckâ in a recording.)
Of course, just because thereâs a recording of your voice doesnât mean anyone will listen to it. There are lots of records that have gone unplayed for decades, even if they were hits at the time.
Roy Orbison came perilously close to being a forgotten man (or at least, a dimly remembered has-been).
He was a huge star during the rockânâroll interbellum, that strange period after Elvis joined the army and before The Beatles released âLove Me Doâ. However, bad management and a bad label deal meant that Orbisonâs career hit the rocks. All of his singles tanked after 1964âs âOh Pretty Womanâ.
There was also some heartbreaking personal tragedy. In 1964, his first wife was killed in a motorcycle accident. A few years later, two of his children died in a house fire. Roy retreated, and the world moved on without him.
Luckily, he had fans in high places who kept his music alive. Linda Ronstadt had a decent hit with a cover of âBlue Bayouâ. Don McLean had a blockbuster smash when he sang âCryingâ. David Lynch featured âIn Dreamsâ in Blue Velvet, which made Orbison extremely cool. The RockânâRoll Hall of Fame officially canonised him in 1987.
Then came a huge career jolt, as Roy got drafted into the most super of all super groups, The Travelling Wilburys. Orbison was probably the least famous member of the group, but you got the feeling that even Bob Dylan was a little stoked about jamming with Roy fuckinâ Orbison.
Sadly, this late-career renaissance was cut short by a fatal heart attack in 1988 at the way-too-young age of 52. But at least he died when public affection was at its peak, both for his music and for Orbison as a person.
The duet of âCryingâ with k.d. lang was recorded in 1987, back when lang was still a minor figure on the country scene. It was re-released in 1992, after Ingenue had made lang a star.
To be honest with you, I donât consider this an especially good version of âCryingâ. The production is a little too glossy, when neither artist requires any polishing. A much better version is their live duet on Jay Lenoâs show:
But even thatâs not the best version of âCryingâ that either of them sang. Orbisonâs best version is, of course, that version that he laid down in Sun Studios in 1962. Itâs the best version of the song, full stop.
Amazing to think that he recorded it in one take [citation needed].
langâs best version is the one she did on MTV Unplugged. She does the pause at âstoppedâ and itâs perfect, although her mellifluous voice has a different emotional resonance. Itâs more languid, more epic.
These versions are great precisely because they contain some of the quirks and imperfections you get in a live performance.
And you know whatâs cool? We can go back and listen to these performances over and over, as many times as we like, and decide which one we like best. We can hear k.d. lang singing, even though sheâs not on tour. We can appreciate Roy Orbisonâs unique voice, 30+ years after his death. We can hear the way he sang âCryingâ that one particular day in 1962.
Thatâs amazing. Itâs kind of a miracle.
Elsewhere in the charts
Number 5 (â from 8): âJust Another Dayâ â Jon Secada
Iâve always thought of Jon Secada as a one-hit wonder, but it turns out I am wrong and also obnoxiously parochial.
Secada has in fact sold 15 million records over the years. The trophy cabinet in Casa Secada groans under the weight of all his awards, including two Grammys, neither of which were for âJust Another Dayâ. Heâs worked with everyone from J-Lo to L-Pav (Luciano Pavarotti). In the world of Latin Pop, he is one of the all-time greats.
Definitely not a one-hit wonder then, even if this was his only appearance in the UK Top 10.
Number 11 (â from 29): âAmigos Para Siempreâ â Jose Carreras & Sarah Brightman
More opera! If you missed the issue about âBarcelonaâ from a few weeks ago, the tl;dr is that opera can be very popular, if itâs presented in the right context.
This particular track was written by Andrew Lloyd Webber as part of the 1992 Olympicsâ opera vibe. Carreras and Brightman performed it at the closing ceremony that year.
Number 14 (New Entry): âRock Your Babyâ â K.W.S.
K.W.S. try to repeat the âPlease Donât Goâ recipe of classic choon + dance beats + very charismatic singer = big hit. It didnât have the same success, despite being essentially the same thing. Actually, maybe that was the problem.
Number 34 (New Entry): âThen Came Youâ â Junior Giscombe
Nothing but love for Junior, whose âMama Used To Sayâ is one of the most slept-on hits of the 1980s.
Number 39 (New Entry): âSilent All These Yearsâ â Tori Amos
Failed to make the Top 40 on its original release in 1992, but Tori decide to give this one a second chance. It ended up becoming one of her signature hits.
Album of the Week
Red Heaven â Throwing Muses
When we last saw Throwing Muses in 1991, Kirsten Hersch and her stepsister Tanya Donnelly were recording the very fun album The Real Ramona, and having a decent-sized hit with the catchy single âCounting Backwardsâ.
A year is a long time in rockânâroll.
Donnelly quit to form Belly and took bassist Fred Abong with her, leaving only two Muses: Hersch and drummer Dave Narcizo. Undeterred, they drafted in a new bass player, Bernard Georges, and recorded a new album as a three-piece.
Red Heaven takes a step back from The Real Ramonaâs pop ambitions, and instead tries to evoke a grimy dive bar atmosphere. Opening track âFuriousâ starts with heavy drums as Herschâs wailing voice seems to rise from the ground like an angry demon:
Hersch is such a dominant presence that itâs sometimes tempting to think that she is Throwing Muses. In fairness to Narcizo and Georges, they play a vital part on this record, often stretching the songs out in new directions, like the serpentine groove that runs through âBackroadâ:
That said, Kristen Hersch is a force of nature and sheâs always going to be star of the show. Her voice and guitar are astonishing, and her lyrics flash like diamonds in songs like âThe Visitâ:
Jesus said in heaven
Thereâs not that much to doâŠ
Leave your dollars where they fall
They have a message of their own
Red Heaven is kind of a throwaway record in some respects. Only one single was releasedâthe excellent âFirepileââand Hersch already starting to focus on her next two albums, both of which would be massive hits (Throwing Musesâ University and her solo debut Hips and Makers.)
But itâs notable for being the first record of the Hersch-Georges-Narcizo lineup which remains in place today. So it is, in a sense, Throwing Musesâ debut. And it kicks ass.
Beautifully written piece about Roy Orbison. I was very nearly crying myself.
Excellent as par usual. Loved the breakdown of Orbison's work and legacy.