Bittersweet Symphony: 5 Songs With Great Orchestration
This week's songs are from the Rolling Stones, Gal Costa, Beck, Glen Campbell, and Lou Reed
I had a very quotable, and often wildly off-base, professor in college who once said Frank Sinatra “invented youth culture.” For a long time, Sinatra was just a crooner in Harry James’ orchestra. The orchestra was the main event in pre-WWII America, and were a key part of the act until the Beatles kicked the door open for rock and roll (and “youth culture”) to take over. Much of that history is forgotten when it comes to rock and roll mythology. Like how radical of an idea it was for the Beatles to record “Eleanor Rigby” with just a string quartet and sparking a merging of popular and classical music. Sinatra, Perry Como, Peggy Lee, Tony Bennett, not to mention Motown and Phil Spector, regularly using string arrangements to back their groups.
Bands backed by an orchestra can signal peak rock excess (think "Cashmere,” “Live and Let Die”, “Tonight, Tonight”). But Metallica and many others have recorded or toured with symphonies, in ways that make sense and fit their sound, reinterpret their catalogue, or just take a big swing for the fences. It’s not really all that novel anymore and takes a little something extra to make it feel fresh. Throwing some swelling strings behind a song is one thing. To make that orchestration the centerpiece is something else altogether.
Here are 5 songs that make excellent use of an orchestra.
“In most cases now, I try to analyze what I’m writing and try to make sense of it and re-jig the grammar and everything. I try not to cross between first person and third person and all those things you’re not supposed to do. Back then, I didn’t really do that, and in this song, I don’t really think it matters. I think it’s good that I just did what I was feeling. There are a lot of different images jumbled in there that come across as one.” - Mick Jagger
The Rolling Stones - “Moonlight Mile”
Mick Jagger had been tinkering with an “Indian-style” of guitar line and lyrics about being bored on tour for a while, when he found himself, Mick Taylor, and Charlie Watts were the only three in the studio. Around midnight they got to recording it and seemed to organically get to the atmosphere captured on the record here. Of course, the strings were added later to heighten that atmosphere, which they very much do. Despite not being on the record, Keef got a writing credit and Mick Taylor did not—the type of band dynamic that helps you understand why he’s no longer a part of it.
For much of “Moonlight Mile” it seems like another solid album-closing ballad. If it faded out at 3:30, we would all say “yeah, that’s a pretty good closer.” But through some level of alchemy, the 22 seconds of Mick Taylor slapping the downstroke chords on a clean telecaster in perfect unison with the swelling string section takes me into outer space. Suddenly I feel like I miss someone or something. It’s absolutely transportational. Play it at the right volume (just a bit louder than “too high”) and it’ll make the hair stand up on the back of your neck every time.
“We were influenced by the Beatles, but after ‘Eleanor Rigby’—when they became sophisticated.” - Caetano Veloso
Gal Costa - “Baby”
The Tropicália art movement in 1960s Brazil came as a rejection of both a conservative military dictatorship and the dispassionate elites. Caetano Veloso and Gal Costa were among the leaders of this movement, which merges Bossa Nova with elements of early psychedelic rock in an attempt to integrate various factions of Brazil’s musical—and political—allegiances. They took cues from the French New Wave in deconstructing an established form, while holding reverence for the form’s virtues and history. As with the hippies, they had long hair, hosted “happenings,” and disrupted cultural institutions. In 1969, Tropicálistas Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil were briefly imprisoned before being kicked out of the country, spending exile in Europe.
As with a number of songs on 1969’s Gal Costa, “Baby” is written by Caetano Veloso, and it was recorded by Costa while Veloso was exiled. It represents a subtle shift towards Música Popular Brasileira—a more sanitized version of Tropicália—that is still modern, but rejecting some western/rock and roll influence—hence, the use of the orchestra. Os Mutantes’ version has an Animals' “House of the Rising Sun” vibe to it—instead of an orchestra its an organ and electric guitar. Costa’s version feels more like a chill party. It takes a few awkward bars for the rhythm section to get going before the orchestra sweeps in and Costa’s voice welcomes the listener in. It doesn’t drift very far from that atmosphere, and it doesn’t have to—the spell is cast.
“I usually get some kind of keyboard and I'll play the basic voicings and we'll map it out. With strings, a lot of times I'll play or sing parts over the song, which we'll transcribe. [On ‘Paper Tiger’] there's a whole solo that the orchestra does; that was actually something I sang, and then we just transcribed it.” - Beck
Beck - “Paper Tiger”
Coincidentally, Beck wrote a song “Tropicália” that uses some of the touchstones of the style. In a way, it was very indicative of the perception of Beck at the time—a musically adventurous goofball. The album released prior to Sea Change was Midnight Vultures, a warped, funky, cartoonish Prince homage. So Sea Change, born out of the end of a long-term relationship, was something of a sharp right turn. We’ve come to expect a lot of sharp turns from Beck since, but Sea Change still stands as his masterpiece. It’s a break-up album to be sure, but there isn’t a lot of “woe-is-me” or “fuck you.” It’s reflective, meditative, and gives a lot of sonic space for the listener to fill in for themselves. It’s a great Fall album.
Using Serge Gainsbourg’s “Melody” as a template, “Paper Tiger” is a showcase not just for producer Nigel Godrich (best known for his work with Radiohead), but composer/arranger David Campbell. Campbell’s first credit is on Carole King’s Tapestry and he seems to have worked with literally every big name since. It’s got amazing dynamics. Beck, the drums from legend James Gadson, and the bass playing up on the neck hold a fairly staid core while the orchestra builds, shifts, and swarms around it. You can practically hear the cavernous room it’s playing in as it practically detaches itself from the band at its center, until finally the band—and Beck—rises up to meet it. It’s of no surprise that Beck is now among those artists to tour in collaboration with local philharmonics.
“It is a continuing miracle that an art form so potent and influential in the emotional lives of human beings is available to virtually anyone who wants to enjoy it. There’s a subtext to classic hit songs, and that subtext is the common experience. By its very nature, it isn’t very easy to explain the intangible hook that fastens on to everyone.” - Jimmy Webb
Glen Campbell - “Wichita Lineman”
My first reference point for Glen Campbell was a joke in the John Lovitz-starring High School High referencing “Rhinestone Cowboy” as Peak Uncool. It took a while, but that first impression is fully chipped away. First, there was the Wrecking Crew, and the publicity of that story which highlighted not just what songs he played on, but showcased how good of a guitar player he was. Soon after, he announced his Alzheimer’s diagnosis, and pushed through with a final tour and two albums of material—all of which is bravely captured in the heartbreaking documentary I’ll Be Me. But he’s still the face of a certain type of syrupy white-bread country-adjacent music, that usually has some type of orchestration (think: Charlie Rich, Andy Williams, Kenny Rogers). Springsteen’s Western Stars is an occasionally excellent homage to this style.
Written by Jimmy Webb, “Wichita Lineman” has been recorded hundreds of times, by artists ranging from Johnny Cash and James Taylor to R.E.M. and Guns N Roses. It’s popular because it is just a damn fine song with some pretty amazing storytelling. It’s pretty amazing what is accomplished in just three minutes. Billy Joel described it “a simple song about an ordinary man thinking extraordinary thoughts.”
And I need you more than want you
And I want you for all time
Webb wrote the song after Campbell had scored a hit with his “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” and Campbell asked him to write a follow-up (“something geographical”). So he recalled a childhood memory of driving through Oklahoma and seeing nothing but telephone poles, and sent over what he thought was a half-finished song (which explains the simple structure). As I see it, it packs such a wallop because of the inversion of the major-into-minor chord change, where the occasional minor chord is dropped in to signal a downcast feeling. The song is primarily minor 7th chords—jazzy and unresolved. Its the shift into the major chords that create that brief feeling of certainty before fading back into minor 7th. Through it all, the orchestra supports that progression with a lot of suspended notes and the occasional whisp, underscoring the singer on his endless search, with the only thing he’s sure of is what he wants but doesn’t have.
“I wanted to write a song that had a great monologue set to rock. Something that could’ve been written by William Burroughs, Hubert Selby, John Rechy, Tennessee Williams, Nelson Algren, maybe a little Raymond Chandler.” - Lou Reed
Lou Reed - “Street Hassle”
Like “Eleanor Rigby”, Lou Reed’s “Street Hassle” is propelled forward by string quartet playing something of a loop. Moreso than any of the other songs featured here, it’s written more in the vein of a classical piece than a pop song. This being Lou Reed, over the orchestra is a sprawling ramble about sex, substance abuse, and urban decay—a closer look at what “all the lonely people” are up to behind closed doors. In the vein of “Sister Ray” or “Heroin,” for over 11 minutes the song doesn’t go very far, but it’s as expansive as it is elliptical. The multiple settings, scenes, and fades in and out it make it feel cinematic. I’m unsure if it’s a pump organ or an accordion that melds the electric instrumentation to the orchestra, but it is perfect. As the spoken-word section he’d written riffed on Springsteen’s “Born to Run,” and Springsteen was in the same studio working on Darkness on the Edge of Town, Reed asked his permission to include it. When he approved it, Reed then asked him to read it. Springsteen agreed to one take, and had to remain uncredited.
Full playlists of songs featured in 5 Songs: