The song ranked #69 on the Rolling Stone list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All-Time is called “Crying” by Roy Orbison.
I calibrated speed of this song like CRYING by Orbison and created the charts based on the speeds derived therefrom. The speed summary registered–
trials measured=8
rhythm=4/4 time, quarter note receives beat
average time per trial=2 minutes, 37.9 seconds
mean speed=96.5 per minute
average beat length=0.622 seconds per beat
meanemotion according to meanspeed music theory=enthusiasm.
The thing that made me say: ah ha! as to why the Stone chose those Roy song over all but 68 ever recorded, and over his more commercially popular Pretty Woman: I had to read what Bob Dylan says about Roy Orbison having a magical voice that could begin and end the final note considerably flat to right on tune respectively–and, as Dylan notes in his autobiography–well read by actor Sean Penn on audible.com, Orbison never misses. Never.
At, Wikipedia, The People’s Free Encyclopedia: “in the mid-1960s Orbison was internationally recognized for his ballads of lost love, rhythmically advanced melodies, characteristic dark sunglasses, and his taut, powerful alto voice coupled with his occasional distinctive usage of falsetto.”
I am a Phil Collins fan, as I have noted. The comparison comes to mind: of a of at least twenty times I saw Phil sing In The Air Tonight with full band, he had me fooled every time that during the infamous “da-da-da-da– -da-da-da-da-da-da” part, Phil was just not going to make it to the kit. He’d stroll up to the kit just a little too slowly. Similarly, at the end of Crying, you never think, in concert, according to his contemporaries, that he would be able too hit “that note” again–but he always did.
Another contemporary example–Bonnie Raitt’s I Can’t Make You Love Me If You Don’t. At the end of the chorus, there is a note that essentially does not exist in sheet music–it is slightly and perfectly flat, and if sung “on pitch” sounds, well, just like a silly person at a karaoke bar.
Roy brought perfection of vocal. He is missed, but unlike Mozart, engraved in recording for all time for us to enjoy.
Some sources on Roy’s 69–
SONGFACTS
“Orbison claimed to have written this as the result of an encounter he had with an old flame with whom he still was in love with.”
WIKIPEDIA
“It is remarkable in that Roy Orbison begins singing the climactic, final note slightly flat, sliding up by the end of the note to just under the correct pitch.
Two misconceptions about Orbison’s appearance continue to surface: that he was an albino, and that he wore his trademark dark glasses because he was blind or nearly so. Neither is correct, though his poor vision required him to wear thick corrective lenses. From childhood he suffered from a combination of hyperopia, severe astigmatism, anisometropia, and strabismus. Orbison’s trademark sunglasses were a fashion statement arising from an incident early in his career. Orbison had left his regular glasses in an airplane. Due to go on stage in a few minutes and unable to see without corrective lenses, his only other pair of glasses were dark prescription sunglasses and he “had to see to get on stage.” He wore the sunglasses throughout his tour of England with the Beatles in 1963 and continued the practice for the remainder of his professional career. “I’ll just do this and look cool.” However, Orbison once said in an interview that he wore sunglasses on the plane because the sun was bright and forgot he was wearing them on stage. Shortly after he finished performing, he looked in the mirror and noticed he had not taken them off, so he laughed about it and continued to wear them for the rest of his career, without taking them off once.”
ROLLING STONE
“Orbison said the song came about after an encounter with an old flame: ,
‘Whether I was physically crying or just crying inside is the same thing.’”
Ian Schneider,
Sophia St. John Newman,
Sarah Anothony,
James T.S. Manning, chief calibrator
June 1 , 2008
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