Talking Heads 2 Crystal Waters_
11/13/2024
Last night I was listening to music with my friend Bill and I became very excited when the so-called "Radio Mix" of Crystal Waters' "Gypsy Woman" came on. I proclaimed that I thought it was sampling the Talking Heads' "Seen and Not Seen" and proceded to bore him to death by flipping back and forth between the two and asking him to imagine the other one sped up.
Obviously there's a lot more going on even if the groove from "Seen and Not Seen" is being used here. It could be that the only thing being used is the tiniest loop of the high-frequency synth/bell sound, with all the other percussion coming from other sources -- I even futzed around with isolating and looping the bongos from "The Great Curve", but I don't think that's actually the basis of the bongos in "Gypsy Woman".
The most compelling argument that "Seen and Not Seen" is being used is because when you speed it up to the same tempo as "Gypsy Woman" that high-frequency bell sound is at the same pitch.
What you'll hear in the following audio file is:
- a loop of the opening bars of "Seen and Not Seen" being gradually raised in speed/pitch to match "Gypsy Woman"
- the opening bars of "Gypsy Woman" at normal speed
- "Seen and Not Seen" with vocals at the pitched-up speed + a few bars of "Gypsy Woman" looping underneath
- then a few more bars of Crystal Waters singing