Second Thoughts: Episode 5 — Lost in Translation, Found in Melbourne
A few things we didn’t get around to mentioning on Wednesday’s On Second Listen—and one correction worth making.
First, a trip to Australia that we didn’t know we were taking.
During our exploration of English football songs, we played a magnificent stadium rendition of Liverpool’s anthem, “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” I identified it as a performance at Liverpool’s home ground, Anfield. But listen to the announcer at the beginning: unmistakably Australian!
The recording appears to come from Liverpool’s July 2013 visit to Melbourne, where more than 95,000 spectators at the Melbourne Cricket Ground sang the anthem before a match against Melbourne Victory.
There’s something rather wonderful about that. A song written for a 1945 American musical, adopted by an English football club, and sung by an enormous crowd in Australia. Music travels. Sometimes farther than we realize.
Two different “9 to 5” hits.
Sheena Easton’s “9 to 5” had to become “Morning Train (Nine to Five)” for its American release to avoid confusion with Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5.” Here’s the remarkable coincidence: both songs reached number one on the American pop chart in 1981, just weeks apart.
And both appeared in our opening segment, although we took a detour through France between them.
A little more about our heavy metal experiment.
Part of the fun assembling our final segment was discovering how faithfully a heavy metal arrangement can preserve the original composition. DragonForce’s treatment of Céline Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” is a particularly entertaining example. The melody survives remarkably intact. What changes is almost everything surrounding it: the speed, the instrumental virtuosity, and the sheer amount of energy.
It raises an interesting question: how much can you change about a song before it becomes a different song? We’ve got several examples to consider in next week’s episode!
Thanks for listening—and for listening again.
On Second Listen airs Wednesdays, 10 a.m.–noon, on WMUH 91.7 FM, Allentown.