Overlooked Songs: Final Match

[BleuPanda]

The rules are simple: vote for your favorite in each match below. The winner will move to the next round. The deadline to vote is Tuesday, October 18th at 10 PM CST. Please listen to these tracks before voting, even if you've heard them a thousand times before!

Bracket:
http://www.bracketmaker.com/tmenu.cfm?tid=463761

Mercury Rev - Holes
vs.
Dusty Springfield - The Windmills of Your Mind

[andyd1010]

Mercury Rev - Holes

[BleuPanda]

Mercury Rev - Holes

Sad to see 2 Rights Make 1 Wrong lose, but at least something in my top 1000 hangs on.

[Henrik]

Holes - my predicted winner!

[Romain]

I'm super happy with these two finalists but my ote go to the Legrand's song.

Mercury Rev - Holes
vs.
Dusty Springfield - The Windmills of Your Mind

[Nick]

Mercury Rev- Holes

[Bang Jan]

Holes

[EmilienDelRey]

Mercury Rev - Holes

[acroamor]

Dusty Springfield - The Windmills of Your Mind

[luney6]

Dusty Springfield

[whuntva]

Dusty

[DaveC]

Dusty Springfield - The Windmills of Your Mind

[Henry]

Dusty Springfield - The Windmills of Your Mind

[Rob]

Dusty Springfield - The Windmills of Your Mind

Probably my favorite discovery here, so a worthy winner.

[jamieW]

I went around and around about this one. These two terrific songs are equals in my mind, so I needed something to break the tie. The only thing I could come up with is that "Holes" is an original while "Windmills" is a remake. It's a pretty pathetic way to choose a winner, but unfortunately it's all I could come up with...

Mercury Rev - Holes

[sonofsamiam]

Holes

[bootsy]

Holes

[Krurze]

Mercury Rev - Holes
vs.
Dusty Springfield - The Windmills of Your Mind

Although I've come to embrace the feverish lyrics of "The Windmills of Your Mind" quite a bit over the course of the tournament

[Honorio]

Two excellent songs. From two excellent albums separated for almost 30 years. Both the peaks of their respective acts. One of them instantly lauded by the critics as a masterpiece but losing steam on recent years ("Deserter's Song" is now 362 in AM). The other was not too appreciated at the time but soon gained a mythical stature, proudly standing just outside of the Top 100 of AM (exactly at #104). The first song is very representative of its album, opening it majestically and setting the tone of the rest of the album. The other song is not widely considered a standout from the album ("Son of a Preacher Man" or "Just a Little Lovin'" usually are the chosen ones) and is not too representative of the Memphis Soul sound that dominates it, bordering on Easy-Listening and with strong Bossa-Nova influence. Talking about AM ratings, "The Windmills of Your Mind" is not even bubbling under, while "Holes" is at the not too outstanding position of 3217. Tragic. Absolutely.

"Most extraordinary is her poise and confident progress through a frankly berserk, psychedelic Brazilian-influenced arrangement of Michael Legrand's utterly French melody for "The Windmills of Your Mind." The occasionally comic surrealism of the lyric never sounded better." (Elvis Costello on the liner notes of the 2002 CD edition; by the way, Costello has a rich vocabulary, I needed to check the meaning of "poise" ad "berserk"). I don't want to be boring but there's a lot to say about the song, like some aspects on the composition (with music by the French composer Michel Legrand and lyrics by American Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman) that you can find on the Wikipedia entry or some production tricks revealed by co-producer Arif Mardin on the liner notes like adding two beats at the end of each phrase to make the phrasing smoother or touches of dissonance under certain words in order to dramatise the lyric content. But there's something I can't resist doing, one of my (infamous) structure and instrumentation analysis:
- 0:00 to 0:49: only a (slightly mysterious) string part (with some of these dissonance touches at 0:37) backing a superb vocal take of Dusty, at the same time restrained and warm, even sexy, recorded as "extreme close-up" (as defined by Costello).
- 0:49 to 1:51: a string-nylon guitar Brazilian-style enters, soon joined by bass, some light piano flourishes and subdued percussion (a cymbal and castanets) and later by some strings. Dusty sound still restrained and elegant in this part.
- 1:51 to 2:59: the guitar begins to introduce some Spanish flourishes and shakers and congas begins to add some rhythm to the song. But the most outstanding part here is Dusty's. Backed by a melodramatic crescendo of the strings on their upper register Dusty finally unleashes her vocal prowess to a strongly emotional effect. After the explosion things calm down a little (following the descending pattern of the harmony and melody) with some flute touches before the…
- 2:59 to 3:50: new (controlled) explosion, the drummer finally is allowed to let loose and he seizes the opportunity to play with a quick tempo, all the band follows him and Dusty ends making a delicious variation of the melody (especially on the phrase "on the circles that you find").
Now I think I understand the meaning of "poise."

First let's listen to the critics rave: "Its opening shot, "Holes," draws you immediately into its sonic world of stately shimmer and high, keening hooks led by Donahue's fragile, friendly Neil Young voice. He's singing about paranoia, but the song's final line – "Bands/Those funny little plans/That never work quite right" – sounded amused and strangely resolved rather than wracked with complaint." (Garry Mulholland for Uncut). "But by the time the listener gets to the end of ‘Holes’ (the opening track) and hears closing words (…) something quite staggering has just taken place. Over the 5 minutes and 55 seconds the song lasts, Mercury Rev unfold a piece of music that is utterly timeless; a level they maintain for the rest of the album." (David Bell for Ceasefire).
And now let's analyse:
- 0:00 to 0:22: the fade-in. A fade-in of strings (a mellotron maybe?) immediately opens the doors to a dream-like world where anything can happen.
- 0:22 to 1:42: the building of layers. The Neil-Youngish voice of Donahue enters the picture: "Time, all th' long red lines" and during the first verse the instruments enter one by one creating layers and layers beautifully built. At 0:22 some woodwinds repeat two notes endlessly, at 0:36 the acoustic guitar enters, at 0:49 a tambourine in quavers and a piano in crotchets Imagine-style anchor the song, at 1:02 some horns and cellos (probably trombones but maybe a mellotron again) enhance the sonic landscape, at 1:17 the bass and a beautiful flute part (played by Suzanne Thorpe) enters and then…
- 1:42 to 2:38: the saw. The drums and more strings enters creating a grand epic effect but, wait… what's that eerie sound? Yes, it's a bowed saw played by Joel Eckborne. I'm not sure if this is the only Rock song with a bowed saw solo but anyway I'm sure there are not many others.
- 2:38 to 3:29: build again. The voice returns ("Holes, dug by little moles") and almost all instrumentation disappear, leaving only the piano, some strings and the last notes of the bowed saw that at 2:51 are replaced by the acoustic guitar. Layers are newly built including the tambourine, new horns and a more prominent strings part.
- 3:29 to 4:12: when Donahue sings that friends "always make me cry" the drums enter again and the second verse gets even more epic than the first one.
- 4:12 to 4:53: the trumpet solo. Just when you think they are going to simply fade out a wonderful flugelhorn solo played by Matt Jordan begins introducing echoes of Miles Davis and creating a second peak on the song.
- 4:53 to 5:08: the conclusion. "Bands, those funny little plans, that never work quite right."
- 5:08 to 5:55: the piano stops, the strings and flutes slowly dissolves in waves leaving you trapped in the dream-like world.
Pure genius.

Love "The Windmills of Your Mind," of course, but my vote goes to "Holes."

[Nick]

Just looked at Dusty Springfield's artist page to see where "Windmills" ranked. Absolutely astounded that the song isn't to be found anywhere. I voted for "Holes", but it was close. Come on critics, let's get "The Windmills of Your Mind" on this site!

[babydoll]

I decided to look on this site today to see how things were going and I come to a pleasant surprise. My nomination, and my favorite song of all time, is in the final matches! I, of course, listened to "Holes" to see how it compares to "The Windmills of Your Mind", and I still have to go with my favorite song. "Holes" is indeed a very deserving component and I'm happy that things went so well for these two songs. That being said, did anyone actually predict Dusty would make it this far?

[deadpacifist]

Holes

[spiritualized]

Holes too

[Nassim]

Mercury Rev - Holes

[Toni]

That being said, did anyone actually predict Dusty would make it this far?

Babydoll, I am not that surprised that "Holes" made it to the final, cause since the first round there were many people who used to rank at #1 out of each week's tracklist of 16 songs. About "Windmills", yes, it was a great surprise for me, specially because it was almost eliminated right on the first round of the game.

I still have to listen to these songs again before deciding my vote.

[Jackson]

Holes - glad to see a T100 song of all-time for me make the final!

[450]

Mercury Rev - Holes

(I always liked that Dusty'' song and considered as overlooked but... I just discovered the Mercury Rev's song and it's an instant classic for me )

... the whole post...

Thank you for that post Honorio - I really like to read such deep and knowlegable deconstuctions of songs
(Your post is my reason to join the forum)

[Honorio]

Thank you very very very much for your kind words, fredp! And welcome to the forum (I think this is your first post in the "Music, music, music..." board, isn't it?).

[BleuPanda]

Voting ends tonight...

[Bruno]

Dusty Springfield - The Windmills of Your Mind

[slick]

I was not going to vote since I am not a big fan of either of these songs... but I sat down and listened to them both again and am going with........................................


Dusty

[Sweepstakes Ron]

Mercury Rev - Holes
vs.
Dusty Springfield - The Windmills of Your Mind

For much of the game, "Holes" was one of my most disliked, and I was highly frustrated that it kept beating obviously superior songs, but I've definitely warmed up to it now. Still nowhere near Dusty, though.

[Toni]

Both songs are equally good, but my vote goes for...

Holes

[450]

Thank you very very very much for your kind words, fredp! And welcome to the forum (I think this is your first post in the "Music, music, music..." board, isn't it?).

yes my first, and I'm not yet regular poster and when I feel that people are much more knowlegable than me I prefer to stay quiet and learn.

The thing is that when I try to explain to friends why I like some songs/musics I always tried to describe the songs as you describe them - second by second, instruments by instruments, but I don't have enough vocabulary and I can't identify/regognize the instruments . But that's exactly the take I have on music, and these are exactly the details I'm looking for when I try to describe or rank songs - I just wanted to thank you for the post. I'm using these 2 descriptions as model and I'm trying to apply them for other songs