Preview

Roy Orbison's Oh Pretty Woman

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
651 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Roy Orbison's Oh Pretty Woman
Royal Orbison’s “Oh Pretty Woman” was released in 1964 and was one of the biggest records of that year. The song has received great recognition since including, Grammy Hall of Fame Award. Orbison’s hit record was also named one of the 500 songs that shaped Rock and Roll by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and it was ranked #222 in Rolling Stone magazine as one of the 500 greatest songs of all time. “Oh Pretty Woman” is considered to be Roy Orbison’s last hit song and the peak of his career. Even though covers use the same lyrics, they can show variations in sound, feel and tone as a result of this a cover song could produce an entire completely different perception. A driving beat. A harsh 3/4 harmonization. Roy Orbison’s exemplary breakthrough …show more content…
Van Halen is an American rock band formed in Pasadena, California in 1974. The Rock band decided to take a long overdue break from each other after being on an exhausting tour. This plan soon changed when band member Eddie Van Halen suggested covering a sixties classic, Roy Orbison’s “Oh Pretty Woman”.“Orbison's lonesome moans” that turn “into hyper-sexual David Lee Roth howls” (Music Time) is a major contrast between the original and this cover. Davis Roth’s howl turns the tone of the song to be more sexual. In fact the music video of the song was so sexually explicit that it had to be banned. At 0:09 is when the dynamics of the song start to increase , the song starts real low and then at a certain point in the song, builds to a loud crescendo, with a full arrangement. The song begins with an electric guitar accompanied by a medium top hat, to really introduce the beat for the rest of the song. Just like the original the song became a sudden hit and was their highest charting single, even though Van Halen forgot a major piece of the song. The band decided to add in synth effects which gave it more of a “updated disco feel” (Classic Rock Review). The songs meaning is driven by a gradual drum beat that backs up many riff variations before settling in with a uneven riff and additional attention-grabbing rudiments and passages throughout the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Gwen Harwood’s work frequently focuses on woman being demoralised by society’s practices that reduce her to a lesser being. A common worldwide value that Harwood rejects as the normality in life with her poems. Harwood battles against the traditions that she believes support this downgrading by continually returning to the issue. Due to Harwood’s existence in a time where women of Australia still fought to vote and for a pay check to match a man’s, Harwood too displays her support. “The Lions Bride” is centred on the subject of marriage and entails the ugliness of the situations that are specific to women. This remains relevant to the modern world because of the ongoing struggle for equality. By using a wedding as a platform to highlight societies imposed traditions on females she seeks to shock the conventional expectations by demonising the widely romantisied event. Harwood extends this and questions treatment of women in the world before any vows are made.…

    • 891 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lynyrd Skynyrd

    • 669 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Dupree, Tom. “Lynyrd Skynyrd in Sweet Home Atlanta.” Rolling Stone 24 Oct. 1974. 16 Feb. 2008http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/lynyrdskynyrd/articles/story/9437632/lynyrd_skynyrd_in_sweet_home_atlanta…

    • 669 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Pretties is the second book in Scott Westerfeld Uglies trilogy. Tally Youngblood is back and is now a pretty. In Tally’s world everyone gets and operation at sixteen that makes them super model gorgeous. Tally now goes to parties all night and basically can do anything she wants, but leave the city. Tally’s fun lifestyle is abruptly changed when she is reminded of her past and is forced to remember things that she, and everyone else, would rather forget.…

    • 278 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country People” is a short story about the connection between one’s soul and life. The story centers around Hulga (Joy) Hopewell and the life-changing experience she has with a traveling Bible salesman (Meyer 265). As a whole, “Good Country People” shows how a person’s point of view can affect the experiences they have. At the beginning of the story, Mrs. Hopewell (Hulga’s mother) has a positive experience with the Bible salesman.…

    • 346 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Richard Rodgers was an American composer, who composed over 900 songs and composed for 43 Broadway musicals. He also composed things for televisions and films. Richard was the son of Mamie and Dr. William Abrahams Rodgers. He began playing piano at the age of six. Rodgers spent most of his early teenage summers in a camp called Camp Wigwam in Maine. This is where he composed most of his first songs. In 1919, Rodgers met Lorenz Hart, a friend of Richard’s older brother. Rodgers and Hart struggled for years in musical comedy, writing many amateur shows. The first professional production they produced together, The Melody Man, did not show until 1924.…

    • 520 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The short story, “Good man is hard to find” revolves around a typical American family in which the main characters are the “grandmother” and the “misfit”. The story by Flannery o Connor portrays a glimpse of what’s man reality is. The fiction reveals the usage of religion and beliefs for humans own satisfaction and how “good” differ from the “bad” which are both paradoxical opposites of each other. The writer used a title which seems very ironic and an extensive use of symbolism can be observed in the story. The story opens when a family sets out for a vacation and the children, mother and the father are accompanied by the grandmother who seems to be very annoying old woman for the rest of the family.…

    • 953 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Secondly, in the story as Esperanza said about Sally “The boys at school think she is beautiful because her hair is shiny black”. She tried to follow her friend Sally to become like her beauty even though that she feels and knew she is not beautiful, but there is something happened to her and she said in the story “he grabs my face with both hands and kisses me hard on the mouth and doesn't let go.” after she has been violated she does not want to define herself as beautiful girl and she was not sure who she is.…

    • 100 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Joan Baez-60's Project

    • 1084 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Hello, I’m Joan Baez. I was born on January 9, 1941, and I am currently 72 years old. I originate as a notable folk songrwriter/artist from the “Counter Culture” Era of the 1960’s. Initially, “folk music” drew form some of the black musical traditons of the South, from the white country music of Appalachia. The folk-music tradition expanded to include the song styles - particularly the blues - of Southern blacks, and to the extents of Native American pow-pow, Mexican-American tejano, and Cajun zydeco musics. Folk music has been traditionally sung in churches, on front porches, in the fields and other workplaces, while rocking children to sleep, and at parties. The purpose of folk music has always been to express ethnic cultures, and to communicate the hopes, sorrows and convictions of ordinary people's daily lives. Although, I have helped turn the meaning of folk music into a more intimate, acoustic style, reflecting the changing times in America and the world during the 1960’s.…

    • 1084 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    How can someone pursue a personal desire if they spent their life trying to conform? Alden Nowlan’s short story, “The Glass Roses” explores this through the protagonist, Stephen. Stephen’s personal desire to feel accepted conflicts with his feeling of having to become like the pulp cutters because he is not mentally or physically ready to fit in with grown men. This results in Chris finding a way to become his own person. Stephen’s journey to pursue his personal desire is shown through setting, character development, and symbolism.…

    • 1134 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Girl by kincaid

    • 820 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin the character Louise Mallard has to be gently told that her husband has died tragically. Her sister Josephine tells her that her husband Bentley died in a railroad accident. Louise Mallard cries and mourns her husbands death but in the back of her mind, she is thinking she will finally be free. Although Bentley was always good to her, she can now have a life of her own without feeling oppressed. She feels that men and women oppress each other even if they do it out of kindness. She fantasizes about how her life will be without her husband and hopes that she will live a long life. Suddenly the door opens and Bentley walks in. He is alive and was not in the accident. Louise mallard dies of a heart attack the doctors say it was from happiness.…

    • 820 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the argument,”Ain’t I a Woman?” by Sojourner Truth, the author herself talks about her true life events during the slavery era. During the early 1900s, America endured a time of slavery where blacks were owned by whites and discriminated against for years. Black men during the early 1900s; were able to speak to their owners, establishing rapport and in return received better treatment than black women. Women during those times, black or white, were not able to vote or hold highly respected positions in the community. Although discrimination was directed towards blacks and women, black women specifically endured far more discrimination from both Caucasian men, and black men.…

    • 661 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    There is a certain appearance that women must keep up, while for men, there is no particular appearance – they are judged on their music not their look (Davies 303). When women are displayed in magazine covers, they are wearing tight clothes and showing a lot of cleavage. “A simplistic explanation for the highly sexualised representation of women would be that individual male music journalists are unable to view women as anything other than sex objects” (Davies 304). In Groce and Cooper’s essay, they interviewed women in local rock and roll bands. One vocalist, Carole, mentioned, “I try very hard to be pretty to an audience.…

    • 1937 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Isn’t She Lovely” sung by Stevie Wonder is an example of how Holden’s younger sister, Phoebe, is an extremely important figure in his life. For instance, when Holden takes Phoebe to the zoo towards the end of the book he conveys just how much of a significant influence Phoebe is in his depressing life. He expresses this by saying, “I felt so damn happy all of a sudden, the way old Phoebe kept going around and around. I was damn near bawling”(Salinger 213), while watching Phoebe take her second ride on the carousel. The fact that his younger sister simply being in his presence almost brings him to tears shows that the two have a very strong relationship. In the lyrics of “Isn’t She Lovely” Stevie Wonder sings about a female figure who also…

    • 197 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Poetry is a type of writing that may or may not explain nature and life in curious terms. Poetry may give insight into erosion, or the loveliness of a snow fall. It might describe the moon as an ordinary object, such as a balloon.…

    • 345 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    "American ________! Stay away from ___!" Fill in the blanks. Go ahead, I dare you to. I know, this is an academic paper, but that doesn't have to stop us from a friendly bout of Mad Libs. So what did you pencil in? "Diabetics" and "excessive sugars"? No. Odds are, you filled in "woman" and "me", respectively. Even if you had never before heard "American Woman" by the Guess Who, after watching Lester Burnham, the protagonist of American Beauty, calmly, cooly, and somewhat arrogantly croon the verse while driving, you'll probably never forget those words, and it's not by accident or simply due of the talent of the Guess Who. It's one of the scenes in American Beauty that, through song, serves as both validation and nostalgia (for Lester) and (for the viewer) as a metaphor or even a vessel to better transmit and actualize Lester from the flat screen we watch him on. In John Cheever's short story "The Country Husband", Frances Weed, Lester's literary doppelganger, does not have the modern advantage of having songs of symbolic power as a backdrop to his own dramatic alienation. One must wonder, then, if the songs American Beauty director Sam Mendes have picked to use for Burnham would also be applicable towards, say immortalizing Frances Weed onto celluloid, or is his life's soundtrack would differ from Lester's?…

    • 1841 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays