Yesterday Once More

6 Jun 2017

Parentheses

Hi Listeners,

While flipping through a list of song titles I noticed that in some songs part of the title was in brackets (in other words in parentheses). Further research failed to find any definitive reason for this except as a marketing device or to provide additional information. In any case there are enough parenthetical titles to make a whole program.

There are some titles where the brackets serve to encase unimportant words such as the Rolling Stones song ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ or John Lennon’s posthumous hit ‘(Just Like) Starting Over)’. The brackets can also enclose the words of a fuller sentence as in the Rita Coolidge song ‘(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher and Higher’ or in Aretha Franklin’s ‘(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman’. Shortening the whole title is evident in Clarence’Frogman’ Henry’s hit ‘(I Don’t Know Why I Love You) But I Do’. The Art Garfunkel song ‘I Believe (When I Fall In Love With You Forever)’ seems to focus on the key words ‘I Believe’ to avoid an impossibly long and cumbersome title.

But, there are other songs where the parenthesis seems to enclose an alternative title. Meatloaf’s vampirish ‘You Took The Words Out Of My Mouth’ (Hot August Night)’ and the Beatles’ ‘Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)’ are two examples of this. Likewise, Del Shannon’s ‘Keep Searchin’ (Follow The Sun)’ and Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘The 59th street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)’ also posit alternative titles.

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