Spirit Move Me

Note I wrote this almost two months ago and saved it as a draft. I was just talking to someone about music reaction videos, so I thought I'd finally publish this.

June 4 --- A couple days ago. I was indulging in one of offbeat pleasures, which is watching Youtube of Millennials and GenZers reacting to hearing classic pop songs from the 1960s-1980s for the first ever time---old standards that most of my generation would easily recognize, but which are completely new to them. There are multiple Youtube channels devoted specifically to this.

Before discover this a couple years ago, it's fair to say that I had burned out on the catalog of songs I grew up with to the point of avoiding listening to them, because they had worn such deep grooves in my mind, and also I could feel overtly the emotions they were meant to create it me, some of which I did not care to feel, and felt resentful they had been foisted on me that way.

But the Youtubers I mention are fun. The vicarious experiences of hearing old familiar songs for the firsts time makes them come alive again. I prefer it usually over the originals in most cases.

It all started because of a line from an old song that got stuck in my head: "whirling like a cyclone in my mind." Anyone deeply familiar with the 1970s pop catalog would instantly recognize that as being a line from "Could It Be Magic?", which was a big hit for Barry Manilow, who became a superstar during those years.

I decided I wanted to hear the song again, as it had been a long time. Since all old songs are on Youtube, it's easy to find them that way, just the recording and not even the music video. But instead of listening to it directly, I decided I preferred to watch a reaction video of it.

The young folk who make these reaction videos (almost always in teams--pairs or more) usually start with a spoken introduction where they talk for a few minutes before putting on their headphones. The song is often one suggested in comments to previous videos. We get to listen along with them as they experience the song for the first time, although sometimes they will say they recognize part of it (because it's been "sampled" by a more contemporary artist).  Often they have never heard of a song that was famous at the time. Sic transit gloria mundi.  

Their biggest challenge is Youtube copyright restrictions. They have to do tricks to keep from being dinged by Youtube for playing a copyrighted song. Almost always that means stopping the song one or more times while it plays, which can be frustrating if you know the song and it is about to come to a cool part. Often their videos get taken down anyway. It depends on who owns the song.

After I discovered these videos, I went on a huge binge of many different Youtube "reaction streamers". Then when I was sated, Youtube's algorithm kept showing me more suggestions for months on end until they finally quit. From time to time I go an a mini binge of watching some of these because they are so fun. My favorite team is probably the Rob Squad, which is a husband and wife (I think) who live in Oklahoma (I think). They have covered a lot of ground of pop music history and watching them react to most songs is a delight. 

"Could it Be Magic?" is one of those songs that I would classify as the cultural peak of its genre for its time.  There are probably ten to twenty such songs throughout that era that define a particular pinnacle of pop music artistry. There is nothing that can match "Could it Be Magic?" as a love ballad (maybe "We've Only Just Begun" by the Carpenters comes to mind). Manilow starts with a piano opening taken from a Chopin prelude and extends it with an original melody, first softly then building it up in intensity, in an attempt (successful I think) to write his own "Hey Jude" (itself certainly one of the "pinnacle songs").  It's weird to think of this playing on the radio across America in the 1970s, but that is the culture in which we lived.

From the first line, "Spirit move me...", the lyrics are mostly beautiful and stirring, occasionally sublime--- well maybe until you get the line about "high up where the stallion meets the sun."  But that's the 1970s for you. After all, we had macramé hanging on our walls and ferns next to the stereo. Note Donna Summer did a disco cover of the song, changing the first line to "spirits move me", which degrades the song to me, changing from something manifestly holy to something evoking a séance. I prefer the Manilow version that does the same invocation as Milton at the beginning of Paradise Lost "and chiefly Thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer before all temples the upright heart and pure..."

The instrumental bridge in the middle makes it one of those songs that seems to transport one to another dimension beyond time---both the past and some other world when one's storylines warp and bend beyond one's current reality. Manilow starts the song in tender softness, as I said, but at the end, he is practically screaming out the lines in passion, like he's trying lead his beloved to safety from a burning building  Nothing like it today. 

I remember when the song was popular on the radio and in the mall, etc. Being curious about timing, I went to Wikipedia and discovered that it was written by Manilow (music) and one of is frequent collaborators (lyrics) in 1970 but at the time Manilow was not yet a recording artist on his own. Three years later he released a version as a B-side with a radically different interpretation  (produced by Tony Orlando (of "Tie a Yellow Ribbon" fame) in a bubblegum style---OMG!). Thankfully they re-recorded and gave us one of the finest compositions of the time. The well-known version that hit number six on the Billboard Chart (only number six! what a time it was!) was released in June 1975, fifty years ago this month.

How many forty-nine year olds are walking around who were...?  Well, you get the idea.

Here is the usual link to the lyrics, for the lyrics challenged. 

And here is the Rob Squad video. 

Spoiler alert: they both loved it.  Such great body energy at the end as they sway.  Rob: "I'm not even going to call that a song. That's a masterpiece." 

Now I just have to avoid watching ten more of the reaction videos after this. Youtube notices when I do that and will push them at me.