Charles on… anything that comes along

This only struck me the other day, but Creep has come on the iPod, and I thought I’d throw it out there for everyone else to consider.

One of the things that makes ‘Creep’ so wonderful is its melody; anyone can sing along. (Not necessarily successfully, but, you know..) Of course, Jonny Greenwood’s wrecking-ball guitar as the song moves into the chorus makes it fabulous, and the whole is greater than its parts.

Then the other day there was a song playing on the radio and I realised that it expresses just the same sorts of emotions. Except it does them while wearing a cardigan and crooning.

The song? Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You. As sung by Andy Williams:

You’re just to good to be true
Can’t take my eyes off of you…
You’d be like heaven to touch
I wanna hold you so much

….second verse extract: Pardon the way that I stare
There’s nothing else to compare
The sight of you leaves me weak
There are no words left to speak

(Not by Burt Bacharach, as I had thought; instead, apparently - if Wikipedia is to be believed - Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio.)

And now Creep:
When you were here before
Couldn’t look you in the eye
You’re just like an angel
Your skin makes me cry
You float like a feather
In a beautiful world

I think they both express pretty much the same emotions: longing for someone you can’t have, who you find you can’t stop watching (an emotion familiar to pretty much anyone from teenager upwards). A teenager hearing the first one could re-interpret it like the second.

There are even similarities in the tune - not that I’m suggesting Thom Yorke stole anything, only that it’s one of those subtle ways that artists sublimate existing work and create something that fuses it with the modern time.

(Bonus piece of irrelevance: the song was originally sung by Frankie Valli, who stars in series 5 of The Sopranos, which is where I’m up to at the moment in my mission to re-watch the whole damn lot. After that, I’ll get to work on The Wire.)

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• The curse of Radiohead strikes X-Factor again (8 October 2007; score: 64.25%)
• What is Microsoft's Songsmith like? Enterprise software, that's what (28 January 2009; score: 53.48%)
• G4 perform 'Creep' on the X-Factor: is there a tree high enough to hang them from? (12 December 2004; score: 47.44%)