Music without words. Is that possible anymore?
Today’s music consists mainly of light rock, heavy metal, and rap. It would be hard to do rat-a-tat rap music without words like “Ho’s in the hood” or rock music without a pounding beat and an echo chamber for the soloist.
But Boomers remember when there was great music, and no words whatsoever. We called them “Instrumentals.”
Remember these?
“Theme From a Summer Place”, “Moonglow”, “Sail Along”, “Theme from the Apartment”, “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White”, “Telstar”, “Canadian Sunset”, “Exodus”, “Theme from the Love Story”, “Moonlight Serenade”, “The High and the Mighty”, “Stranger on the Shore”, “Lara’s Theme”, and “Speak Softly Love (Godfather)”.
And then there was Henry Mancini’s brilliant work. Like many of the songs above, most of his songs ended up with words, but the music itself was the stuff of stand-alone beauty: songs like “Moon River” from
Breakfast at Tiffany’s, “The Days of Wine and Roses”, “Arabesque” and “Dear Heart”.
Boomers also recall instrumentals that weren’t necessarily love songs. Some were catchy instrumentals like Bill Doggett’s “Honky Tonk”; “Walk Don’t Run” by the Ventures; Herb Alpert’s “Lonely Bull”, “A Taste of Honey”, and “What Now My Love”. Duane Eddy had “Rebel Rouser” and the Ventures recorded “Wipe Out”. Good stuff, one and all.
One of the great instrumentals of that time had only one word. It was one of the few songs I knew every word to. It was “Tequila” by The Champs.
Those were good days and some great music. Even and especially without words.
