Beauty Plus Unrequited Infatuation= Lonely: MELISSA, The Allman Brothers Band, meanemotion=Lonely, meanspeed=83.1 bpm

 

 

contemporary tempo map - meanspeeed music public education 2

contemporary tempo map - meanspeeed music public education 2

Melissa is a song written by the Allman Brothers band based on a beautiful little girl that they used to see in the supermarket between rehearsals & recording sessions.  From the many sources I have read, there is no one “official story” as to who the girl was and who exactly was so emotional about her.  You have to deduce it was as a Monet painting of beautiful young ballet dancers. The children are adorable, yet the expression of the artist is not pedophilia (except the Bay City Rollers drummer, and he did not write their songs, anyway), the effect us bringing one back to a scene of innocence at the most carefree time in life.  Perhaps this girl in Melissa, the song, looked like someone a Bother wished was 10 years older – the teacher falls for student thing.  The 10 year gap between you and your 10th grade English teacher might have made it criminal for the two of you to hold hands.  10 years later, you’re 25 and she’s 35, well, not such a big deal anymore.  I think this song is that type of lament. This YouTube comment says it all, – “I had not seen this version, yet ….Whatever version I see confirms to me that this is one of the saddest most beutiful songs written this century. Yet it makes me soooo happy to hear it!!!!” attributed to morjohnny540, on or about 6/9/09. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqeXZ-4kb60)

So if you feel blue that this song isn’t a confident get up and go anthem, that would be your explanation as to why: TEMPO ONLY.  As I always note, well, sometimes note, tempo is to a song what the weatherperson (Al Roker, Chris Cimino, Sam Champion) is to the news (Deborah Norville, Walter Cronkite, Wolf Blitzer).  The news is the *tone* fo teh song – and the melody.  The harmony is more important than tempo also.  So said, next comes rhythm – and though tempo comes last, like the weather report, turns out that the weather can effect everything reported by the Couric’s, O’Reilly’s, Gibson’s, Willimas’, Scarborough’s and Olberman’s.  God rest the soul of Timothy Russert, the last real reporter.   Requiem Eternum † – no one else is going to put a possible truth ahead of being killed.  I do not know that TR was killed.  Given the Smith & Wesson test, ie, gun to my head, wrong answer gets your head shot off: I was watching CNN in my father in law’s hospital room when the autopsy reults, unquestioned, were more detailed than other part of Tim’s death.  That was disturbingly familiar and similar to that which David Lipton wrote about JFK: that the newspapers in Australia knew of his death before the motorcade started – so much for the “land of the free and the home of the brave” – like this song, it gets more like the “land of the  corporate slave and the home of the diffident”

 

 

contemporary tempo map - meanspeeed music public education

contemporary tempo map - meanspeeed music public education

  The Neumann-Carlton Summary  performer=The Allman Brothers Band album=Eat A Peach mean speed/average expected tempo=83.1 beats per minute. meanemotion=lonesome solitude mean beat=1.385 beats per second. average beat length=722 milliseconds per beat, a quarter note mean slow phase=1.385 cycles per second. mean pitch=354.560 Hertz, 27 cents above F4=349.228 Hertz, 63 cents below F#4/Gb4=369.994 Hertz.  So about an F.  Very sad, that tone of F.  Paul McCartney created a 50 year movement from understanding this. Ian Schneider NYC   this article is a revised and crisper version of that which was published on September 14, 2006.  As you can see, I also got very fancy learning that the color blue was subject to iPhoto® manipulation.  That one graph on the top looks way better than it used to – plus, WordPress gets the credit for holding it, not the disgraceful blogging service who’s names end in a word which rhymes with Fog’s Hot.  And diffident means- outrageously milquetoast weak when among others.  

contemporary tempo map - meanspeeed music public education 3

contemporary tempo map - meanspeeed music public education 3

"Jesus Is Just Alright" – The Doobie Brothers, 1972 – mean speed=133.6 bpm -Speed Graphs Expose Tempo Moving Through Space

Meanspeed®-Carlton tempo summary -

beats measured=5,880
total time elapsed=44 minutes, 8 second
mean time per trial=4 minutes, 24.8 seconds
average beats per trial=588
mean speed/average/median velocity=133.6 beats per minute

average beat=449 milliseconds

bpm graph - Doobie Brothers -meanspeed music school / LH

bpm graph - Doobie Brothers -meanspeed music school / LH

tempo graphics by=Ian Andrew Schneider for meanspeed music company (c) 2007-2009.

The song’s history is fantastically laid out
from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
URL=”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toulouse_Street


Toulouse Street Toulouse Street is the second studio album by American rock band The Doobie Brothers, released in 1972 (see 1972 in music).

Track listing

  1. “Listen to the Music” (Johnston) – 4:44
  2. “Rockin’ Down the Highway” (Johnston) – 3:18
  3. “Mamaloi” (Simmons) – 2:28
  4. “Toulouse Street” (Simmons) – 3:20
  5. “Cotton Mouth” (James Seals, Dash Crofts) – 3:44
  6. “Don’t Start Me to Talkin’” (“Sonny Boy” Williamson) – 2:41
  7. “Jesus Is Just Alright” (A. Reynolds of the byrds) – 4:33
  8. “White Sun” (Johnston) – 2:28
  9. “Disciple” (Johnston) – 6:42
  10. “Snake Man” (Obesity John Fischer) – 1:35

Personnel
The Doobie Brothers:

  • Patrick Simmons – guitars, vocals
  • Tom Johnston – guitars, vocals
  • Tiran Porter – bass, vocals
  • John (Little John) Hartman – drums, percussion
  • Michael Hossack – drums

Additional personnel:

  • Jerry Jumonville – saxophone
  • Joe Lane Davis – horns
  • Sherman Marshall Cyr – horns
  • Jon Robert Smith – horns
  • Bill Payne – piano, organ, keyboards
  • Dave Shogren – bass and guitar on “Toulouse Street”; vocals on “White Sun”
  • Ted Templeman – percussion

Production

  • Producer: Ted Templeman
  • Associate Producer: Stephen Barncard, Marty Cohn
  • Engineer: Stephen Barncard, Marty Cohn, Donn Landee
  • Production Coordination: Benita Brazier
  • Design: Barbara Casado, John Casado
  • Remastering: Lee Herschberg
  • Photography: Jim Maggid, Michael Maggid
  • Art Direction: Ed Thrasher
  • Horn Arrangements: Jerry Jumonville

Charts

Album

Year Chart Position
1972 Pop Albums 21

Singles

Year Single Chart Position
1972 “Jesus Is Just Alright” Pop Singles 35
1972 “Listen to the Music” Pop Singles 11