I’m interested in a particular kind of pop song: mainstream-ish tracks that are so minimal in their melodic or lyrical content that they barely qualify as “songs,” yet manage to still be musically compelling. My paradigmatic examples:
“That’s The Way (I Like It)” by KC and the Sunshine Band
“Around The World” by Daft Punk
“Turn Down For What” by DJ Snake and Lil Jon
“Combination Pizza Hut And Taco Bell” by Das Racist
Calling these songs “simple” is not totally accurate, since the first three in my list feature lavish production. Still, the parts you can sing yourself are simple.
The term “simple song” naturally evokes “Simple Song” by Sly and the Family Stone, which is actually not all that simple–it’s more like an homage to simple songs.
Simple songs fall into a few different subgenres. Most obviously, there are children’s songs, like “Wheels On The Bus.” The beauty of these songs is that it’s easy to adapt them and make up new verses. I added a bunch of Peppa-Pig-themed verses (“The George on the bus says di-no-saur, di-no-saur, di-no-saur”) that have now become canon for my kids and are no longer optional. It’s possible to produce this kind of song as a good-sounding track–the version by Dora The Explorer is pretty rockin’–but recording isn’t the point of kids songs, they’re meant to be sung by and to kids. I do want to shout out “Brush Your Teeth” by Raffi, which I sang to my kids two to four times a day, every day, for a period of years. His recorded arrangement is straightforward and effective.
The next genre of simple song is the grownup quasi-children’s song, otherwise known as the fake primitive/racist song. My main example here is “Coconut” by Harry Nilsson. I’m sorry, Harry Nilsson fans. I loved this song when I was a kid too. But it’s racist. He’s singing about fake Caribbean themes in a fake Caribbean dialect. It would have been better to just sing it normally.
There are a lot of mid-twentieth-century novelty songs that fit the “simple song” description, for example “Tequila.”
There are also plenty of simple folk songs and hymns. “Amazing Grace” is as simple as songs get, but it can be a launchpad for extended complex improvisation and embellishment. The version that Aretha Franklin does on her album of the same name is eleven minutes long.
Speaking of launchpads for improvisation, there’s a whole subgenre of simple riff-based jazz tunes, for example “C Jam Blues” by Duke Ellington.
Two notes over twelve-bar blues, it doesn’t get any simpler than that. Of course, the point is that this is just the setup for improvised solos which can be as complex and unpredictable as you want. There are many John Coltrane tunes that follow a similar premise: the various themes of A Love Supreme, as well as “India,” “Impressions,” and “Equinox.” Further examples include “So What” and “Freddie Freeloader” by Miles Davis, “The Blues Walk” by Clifford Brown, and “Green Chimneys” by Thelonious Monk.
Then there’s the more ambiguous category of songs with extremely simple choruses but more complex verses. I’m thinking here of “We Will Rock You” by Queen.
And of course the back half of “Hey Jude” by the Beatles.
The “simple chorus, complex verses” description applies to many rap songs. Here’s a classic, “Grindin'” by Clipse.
This format is even more common in current trap/mumble rap, for example “New Level” by A$AP Ferg ft. Future.
On a more serious and political note, there’s “Gimme Back My Shit” by Efe Bes – Thanks to Sounding Out Blog for alerting me to this one.
Disco loves a good simple song. Beyond “That’s The Way (I Like It),” there’s also “I Feel Love” by Donna Summer.
And my favorite disco tune, “Funkytown” by Lipps Inc.
I love “Funkytown” for many reasons. One of them is how easy it is to remix it, mash it up, and otherwise blend it into other tunes. Babsy Singer and I combined it with “Hollaback Girl” by Gwen Stafani (itself a good simple song) and the Katamari Damacy soundtrack. Here I’ve combined it with many other songs:
https://soundcloud.com/ethanhein/nardistown
Daft Punk has many examples beyond “Around The World,” for example “Robot Rock.”
Two more noteworthy examples recommended to me by friends:
“Lady (Hear Me Tonight)” by Modjo
“Alors On Danse” by Stromae
“Once in a Lifetime” by Talking Heads takes the format of a simple song and turns it into a strangely profound work of art.
I like all of the above songs aesthetically, but they’re also valuable for music education purposes. Beginners and little kids are usually stuck with corny repertoire like “Hot Cross Buns” or “Go Tell Aunt Rhody.” It would be better to use music that’s easy to learn and play but that isn’t corny and lame.
I’m sure you have more suggestions for me. Leave them in the comments.
Apples to oranges.
This isn’t a matter of “is Black people voting worth irritating moderate Whites”, it’s a matter of “is Black people being protected from imitation worth irritating moderate Whites.” There is no human right to not have your culture imitated, and imitation is the highest form of flattery.
Not all imitation is equal, and it certainly is not always flattery. Blackface minstrelry used to be the most popular form of entertainment in America. The intent wasn’t always malicious. Al Jolson was a sincere lover of the black music of his era and imitated it with nothing but the purest intent. But he still wore blackface. Harry Nilsson’s fake patois isn’t quite as egregious as that, but it’s a difference of degree more than kind. There’s plenty of benign imitation in music – literally every kind of American and British popular music descends from African diasporic tradition – but there’s plenty of racist appropriation too, even among musicians with the best intentions.
The only lyrics in this chorus are “Don’t Stop the Love”, think it qualifies, verse is quite restrained, pre-chorus is a bit more song-y.
But racial progress at what cost? Is protecting the 12% of the country that is Black from somewhat culturally insensitive but not truly racist content really worth irritating the 60% of the country that is White?
Everyone should have equal rights, but I don’t believe that some groups are entitled to special treatment because of how their ancestors were once treated.
Fine, call “Coconut” out. But must it really be shunned and removed from pop culture? Can’t we just accept it as a fun, well-intentioned little ditty from another time?
But the broader point about Americans doing opera still stands. Americans singing opera don’t attract nearly the level of vitriol that Whites trying to rap does.
Compare the response to Michael Bolton’s opera to the response to Iggy Azalea’s rap.
Bolton is much more talented, for sure, but if an American can sing Italian music, a White person can sing Black music.
If the cost of learning to treat millions of people with the basic respect due all human beings is some mild discomfort on the part of white people, that seems like a pretty good tradeoff to me.
Racism is not an issue of black people’s ancestors, it’s a system of ongoing oppression. For example, a cursory glance at America’s prison population shows that we continue to enact massive amounts of disproportionate state-sanctioned violence at black people and other minorities: https://ethanhein.com/wp/2018/racism-is-not-over-and-americas-prisons-prove-it/ The police, prosecutors and legislators who created this situation aren’t operating in a cultural vacuum. If you grow up thinking that it’s okay to caricature people of color, that they aren’t quite as fully human as you are, then that paves the way to accepting our disgusting criminal justice policies.
Harry Nilsson singing in racist dialect is not comparable to singing Italian opera in Italian. Opera singers treat their source material with great reverence and care. They study for years to learn correct pronunciation, historical context and stylistic fidelity. A better comparison to Harry Nilsson would be calling Italians greaseballs.
I’m glad you brought up Iggy Azalea, though. She gets so much heat not only because she’s terrible, but because she puts on a fake ghetto accent and generally playacts a caricature of a black person. White rappers who are respectful of rap, who take their craft seriously and who don’t try to pretend to be something they’re not do not face the same level of criticism. All the young black hip-hop artists I know respect and admire Eminem, for example. Back in the day, everyone rightly mocked Mark Wahlberg and Vanilla Ice, but respected the Beastie Boys and MC Serch. It’s all about showing respect and not being a colonizer.
There are plenty of rich people and White people in the Caribbean, and Caribbean accents aren’t exclusively White.
Compare the treatment of American pop singers who try to sing opera in an Italian style to the treatment White people who try to rap in a Black style.
Some opera purists object to the pop singers, but no one ever tries to accuse them of racism or cultural appropriation. In fact, they are often applauded for stepping outside of their comfort zone.
Meanwhile, Whites who try to rap in a Black style are called all sorts of words like “racist” and “culturally appropriator”, and so forth.
Another place this can be seen is by comparing Kendrick Lamar to the great Luciano Pavarotti.
Lamar kicks White fans off of the stage for singing along to his songs, whereas Maestro Pavarotti is gracious and inclusive to pop singers who want to sing opera with him.
The rich and white people in the Caribbean aren’t exactly the ones responsible for all the musical innovations of the region, and they’re not the ones Harry Nilsson is imitating.
Not all cultural appropriation is equal. It depends on the power dynamics. It’s fine for less-privileged groups to appropriate the culture of more-privileged groups. It’s bad when more-privileged groups appropriate the culture of less-privileged groups. Italians were historically an oppressed minority in the United States and the UK; they didn’t become “white” until fairly recently. So while Anglo people doing parodic Italian accents is not as horrible as it would have been 50 or 100 years ago, it’s still pretty gross.
There are multiple definitions of racism. Mine is the more traditional one, though yours is more popular in left-of-center political circles.
Racialized double standards like the ones you are advocating for here will never reduce racial tensions in society, they will only irritate people and make them less interested in working for racial reconciliation.
If it’s okay for Michael Bolton to put on an Italian accent to sing “Che gelida manina”, then it’s okay for Harry Nelson to put on a Caribbean accent to sing “Coconut”.
“Coconut” is at best somewhat culturally insensitive, but it’s a huge stretch to call it racist.
And even if it was, it’s still a good song, and shouldn’t be scrubbed from pop culture.
The question of whether irritating white moderates is effective or counterproductive in advancing antiracism is an empirical one. I just spent a semester studying the history of the United States civil rights movement, and the conclusion is clear: progress only happens when white moderates (and liberals) are pushed out of their comfort zone. Martin Luther King was deeply unpopular among white people, even Northern liberals, during his lifetime. The widespread feeling was that he had a point, but that he was pushing for too much change too fast. The same attitudes prevailed about the Freedom Riders, the sit-in protesters, Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycotters, and everyone else who was effective in making real and lasting change. Kennedy, Johnson and other Democrats didn’t sign civil rights legislation because they were gently persuaded; they did it grudgingly because they faced political pressure, both domestically and internationally (Jim Crow was an effective propaganda point for the Soviet Union as it tried to become more influential in Africa and Latin America.)
Realizing that something you love has ugly racial connotations is painful. Like I said in the post, I loved “Coconut” as a kid, and still think it’s a delightful piece of music. But it always made me a little uncomfortable too, and it took me literally decades to figure out why. White appropriation of black culture is so normalized and ubiquitous in America and the UK that it’s hard to even see it. That’s why it’s so necessary to call it out, even if it does make people uncomfortable. Especially if it does.
As for the Michael Bolton example, it’s a false equivalency. Michael Bolton isn’t putting on a fake Italian accent, he’s singing in Italian. It’s more respectful to use correct pronunciation if you sing in a foreign language. The same would be true if he was singing in Swahili or Kreyol. On the other hand, if Michael Bolton was singing in English with a vaudevillian Italian accent, that would be pretty bad.
It’s only racist if it expresses the idea that one race is superior to each other – that’s what racism actually is.
It may be somewhat culturally insensitive, but no more so than a Yankee singing country songs about Southern themes and singing in a fake southern accent.
Racism is not only the expression of the idea of racial superiority, it’s behavior that reinforces dominance of one racial group over another. Simple imitation of another culture is not automatically racist, but when white people do it to black culture, there are power dynamics and history at work. White appropriation of Caribbean culture is part of a history of white people appropriating the land, resources, and literal bodies of Caribbean people. I’m sure Harry Nilsson didn’t intend any harm with his song, but being oblivious to racial politics is a privilege of whiteness, and racism lives in the effects of an action, not its intent.
The comparison to Yankees singing in fake Southern accents is an interesting one. It can be classist, and generally tacky, but the power dynamics aren’t simple. Rich and powerful people appropriating the culture of poor and powerless people is always a bad look, but there are plenty of rich and powerful white Southerners too, so it’s not necessarily clear cut. But the bottom line is this: white people, don’t do black dialects. Just don’t do them. Sing in your normal voice like everyone else does.
Interesting post, but “Coconut” isn’t racist. It may not be exactly politically correct, but there’s are many shades of gray between “not politically correct by 2018 standards” and “racist”.
Imagine Harry Nilsson doing a stereotypically Asian-sounding tune in a mock Chinese accent. Or a stereotypically Jewish-sounding tune in a mock Jewish accent. Or a stereotypically Latin-sounding tune in a mock Latin accent. This isn’t just 2018 hyper-wokeness, that song was racist the day it was released. Many beloved American songs are.
Thanks for writing on this subject! I’ve been teaching ukulele with two-chord songs and am always on the lookout for more. Here’s some of what I have found:
Shoo Fly American
Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho American
Clementine American
Hell Squirrel Nut Zippers ©
Jambalaya Hank Williams Sr. ©
Old Roger England
Day-O Jamaican Mento
Canoe Song Canada
The Hokey Pokey American
Skin and Bones American
Mary Ann Roaring Lion ©
Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Round American
Little Bird, Fly Through My Window American
Istanbul Not Constantinople Jimmy Kennedy & Nat Simon ©
Iko Iko New Orleans
Fidel Castro Lord Invader ©
Shortnin’ Bread music: folk; lyrics: James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916)
All Around the Kitchen American
Arkansas Traveller/Donut Song/Bumblebee American
Ah Poor Bird England
Oye Como Va Tito Puente ©
Emperor’s New Clothes Sinead O’Connor ©
Everyday People Sly Stone ©
Fame David Bowie ©
Vesamachta Israel
Old Joe Clark American
Soup, Soup Georgia Sea Islands
Shalom Chaverim Hebrew
Keep A-knockin’ Little Richard ©
Man Smart, Women Smarter King Radio ©
Chewing Gum American
Start Wearing Purple Gogol Bordello ©
You Are My Flower Carter Family ©
Achy Breaky Heart Donald von Tress ©
Bling Blang Woody Guthrie ©
Eh La Bas American (cajun? Zydeco?)
These are excellent, thanks for posting them!
There`s a load of [simple] one chord, or MODAL songs.these are more african tone jams,no euro.chord changes.But with the groove rather than chordal melody,you have the freedom of playing any note you choose,as long as you return to the modal groove.Blues,Jazz, are loaded with modal songs.One of the simple but hip-no-tize songs is CCR[ Grave yard train], a Howlin Wolf style song.And stuff like the old [Roll and tumble], these are basic but will take you to the outskirts…