shut up and listen

Booming drum introduction with a cracking snare. Boom. Ba-Boom. Crack! Boom. Ba-Boom. Crack! Shows off the big reverb sound that is characteristic of Spector productions and was totally unique at the time.

The overall effect is a BIG sound but with an ‘over there’ distant quality. When the other instruments all come in after the intro the instrumentation becomes hard to identify as everything gets a bit swallowed and blurred. There’s piano, strings, acoustic guitars maybe, bass of some sort and lots of percussion (castanets, tambourine, shakers, hand claps etc). Horns enter in the pre chorus. Backing vocals enter in the chorus and continue in the second verse as wordless oohs and ahhs. The instrumental break is lead by strings and includes oohs and ahhs backing vox.

Just before the climax of final choruses that fade out, everything stops and the drum intro is repeated. It’s a clever way to recycle the striking intro and remind us of the unique reverb sound of the song, and to set us up for the climax of the song.

As the climax fades out several drum fills are played. In fact the drums in this track are almost a lead instrument – the thumping heartbeat intro, the castanets, the cracking snare filling in the spaces between vocal lines in the first verse, the tumbling tom fill leading into the chorus, the steady beat that pins down the choruses, and finally the sputtering tom fills during the fading climax. Certainly in the mix the drums are given a lot of emphasis, often competing with the lead vocal.

The lead vocal also sounds distant but every word of the lyric is intelligible – as are the harmonised backing vocals. The lead vocal is absolutely belted out and the recording seems to be straining to contain it. Listen to the second verse Oh, since the day I saw you and how those high notes seem on the verge of distortion. And yet she still sounds like she’s way ‘over there’ somewhere, quite at odds with the close mic crooning of Sinatra and co. from the previous decade.