I will follow him

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I will follow him
Cover
Little Peggy March
publication 1962
length 2:25
Genre (s) pop
text Norman Gimbel
music Franck Pourcel , Paul Mauriat
album I will follow him

I Will Follow Him is a pop song that became a worldwide hit in the 1963 version of Peggy March . Numerous cover versions followed the original. The title made a comeback in 1992 as a gospel song in the film Sister Act with Whoopi Goldberg in the lead role.

Emergence

Originally composed as an instrumental by Franck Pourcel , the piece of music was published in 1959 under the title Chariot with the addition Mambo - Twist on Amour, Danse, Et Violons. No. 17 published by His Master's Voice in France . Also in France and again as Chariot , the first vocal version appeared in 1962, sung by Petula Clark and which received a gold record for more than one million copies sold .

After the French success, the composer asked his friend Paul Mauriat for help in making the musical material suitable for the US market. Both musicians, Pourcel under the pseudonym JW Stole, Mauriat as Del Roma, edited the piece and gave it the style of a doo-wop song , as it was modern in the early 1960s. The roots of this style are in gospel , jazz , blues and barbershop singing, all typical US musical styles. In general, they did a lot to make the song look as American as possible. Petula's very "leisurely driving chariot " was adapted to the tastes of American teenagers. They used a characteristic chord progression in connection with syncopations . These means are typical of the doo-wop style and give it its propulsive groove .

Peggy March 1967

The artistic supervision of the project was taken over by Hugo Peretti and Luigi Creatore , who as a team were counted among the most important music producers on the east coast . Peretti hired arranger Arthur Altman, with whom they had already worked on the recordings with Sam Cooke . The arrangement of the studio recording was done by the orchestra leader and conductor Sammy Lowe , who accompanied Peggy March with his orchestra on all recordings for RCA in 1963 and 1964. For the lyrics the songwriter Norman Gimbel was won, whose text reflects the common moral concept of the time, according to which women had to subordinate themselves to men. Almost every song that was written for female voices in the early 1960s had a submissive tone of voice and alluded to the traditional image of women . It fit into this scheme when Little Peggy March, as the artist called herself at the time, sang in this song about wanting to follow her loved one everywhere.

The English version of Chariot was released as a single on January 22nd, 1963 by RCA Victor and already climbed to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on April 27th , where it stayed for three weeks. The title also reached number 1 on the Billboard R&B charts, where it was listed for a total of twelve weeks. Peggy March, who was only 15 at the time, ousted Brenda Lee as the youngest pop singer to ever reach number one on the Billboard rankings. The record was sold over two million times and March received a gold record for it. It also made it to number one on the charts of Australia , New Zealand , Japan and the Scandinavian countries . In Germany, the hit landed in sixth place on July 20, stayed in the top 10 for four weeks and was on the charts for a total of 13 weeks. I Will Follow Him was next to RCA from other labels such as B. CBS or Mocambo in Brazil and could be sold in almost six million copies worldwide. The LP of the same name, released by RCA and entered the Billboard album charts on August 17, 1963, stayed there for three weeks and reached number 139.

Text and arrangement

The following description refers to the song as interpreted by Peggy March.

The song begins with the intro of a few bars with nonsense text, which with a catchy bass line , almost a cappella, the rhythm of the piece

"Du-du- dob , du-du- dob , du-du- dob , du-du-du-du-du-du- dob , du-du- dob , du-du- dob , du-du-du -du-you-du- dob ... "

pretends before the female accompaniment group starts with background vocals :

"I love him , I love him , I love him . And where he goes I'll fol low , I'll fol low , I'll fol low . "

The solo part then begins with the first verse .

"I will follow him
Follow him wherever he may go
There isn't an ocean too deep
A mountain so high it can keep
me away."

At the end of the first verse, the driving ostinato in the bass begins again (du-du- dob , du-du- dob , du-du ...).

Other versions

Chariot

Petula Clark , 1960

As the first song version, Petula Clark's Chariot enjoys a special position. The French text was written by Jacques Plante, who tells of a woman who crosses a plain on the driver's seat of an old covered wagon . She wants to be with her loved one and that he confesses to her love. The rhythm of the French original is less throbbing compared to its US counterpart and is driven almost entirely by the strings , who, like the chorus in I Will Follow Him, repeat individual musical phrases . Overall, the arrangement is therefore more reminiscent of the score for a western . In fact, when Pourcel composed the tune, it seems he had the soundtrack in mind for a new western film that perhaps should have been produced by 20th Century Fox .

In this arrangement, too, the forcing of the music is made clear through the repetition of the words in the chorus .

"La plaine, la plaine, la plaine
N'aura plus de frontière
La terre, la terre
sera notre domaine
Que j'aime, que j'aime"

In the same year, Clark released records in Belgium , where she was able to secure first place on the charts in Wallonia . Shortly thereafter, three more versions hit the charts in Italy. Clark released a single called Sul mio carro (On ​​my car) and reached fourth place in the Italian Classifica musicale , the national counterpart to the hit parade. Another edition, translated by Vito Pallavicini , arranged by Bruno Pallesi and sung by Betty Curtis , took third place in this ranking in 1963 as the highest position. Similar editions also became top 10 hits in Argentina , Spain and Uruguay . This was followed by Denmark and the Netherlands , where the song could succeed in the English translation. In West Germany, people wanted to know less about the Wild West Romanticism and the name was changed to Cheerio, which means “goodbye”. In this song, she lamented the loss of her lover who left her.

“Wonderful time,
unfortunately tomorrow already past.
Why does the farewell have to be?
Why do you leave me alone now, so alone? "

"Poster of the West End Production SISTER ACT - A DIVINE MUSICAL COMEDY"

Secondary use

Most of the other adaptations relate to the English language version and were more than less successful as their cover versions . Peggy March herself covered the Cheerio version of Petula in 1970 under the title Adio, Adio and her own hit two more times in 1979 and 2013.

The title made a comeback in 1992 in the film Sister Act with Whoopi Goldberg in the leading role. The redesign of the piece, which is the climax of the narrative in the final concert of the nuns' choir, is essentially based on Peggy March's original. With the contrast between two very different tempo indications , an additional expressive design element is brought into the lecture. The beginning is very slow and sustained in the form of a hymn . Then the main part, arranged as gospel , begins , which is interrupted by a cadenza-like solo of the second voice and can be found very liberating compared to the severity of the quasi chorale prelude .

The performance in the church context puts the original text in a completely different context. The text can now be understood as a surrender to Jesus . Since then, the work has been performed by many lay and church choirs . Shortly after the film was released, Sister Act was also released as an adaptation in the musical of the same name .

In 1999 the rapper Eminem used the distinctive "I'll follow, I'll follow ..." of the chorus in a sample to underlay his spoken vocals in Guilty Conscience on the album The Slim Shady LP . David Bowie used a similar construction in 2003 for the guitar riff of his hit New Killer Star, a single from the album Reality. The plagiarism is recognizable, even if it says there:

"Don't ever say I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready,
I never said I'm better, I'm better, I'm better"

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Will Stos: Bouffants, Beehives, and Breaking Gender Norms: Rethinking “Girl Group” Music of the 1950s and 1960s. In: Journal of Popular Music Studies. Vol. 24, No. 2, pp. 117–154, here: p. 123.
    Of course, no conclusions can be drawn from a single song text about the zeitgeist when it was created. The lyrical content of “I Will Follow Him” stands alongside that of other songs of this era, such as the titles “He's So Fine” or “Johnny Angel”, exemplary for a very one-sided and male-dominated understanding of gender roles. Charlotte Greig, on the other hand, takes the view that the songs reflect the self-image of female teenagers: The songs were “for a female audience and therefore had to take a female point of view to a certain extent. In other words, her pieces almost inevitably had to deal with the interests of women, especially sex, love, romance and marriage. It was important to listen to the women for solid economic reasons - otherwise the records would simply not have sold. ”Charlotte Greig: Will you still love me tomorrow? Girl bands from the 50s to today. Translated from the English by Markus Schröder. Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1991, p. 8 f.
  2. ↑ Note: After the bold syllables there is a short pause (syncope).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Richard Aquila: That Old-Time Rock & Roll: A Chronicle of an Era, 1954-1963. University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago 2000, p. 271. Preview on Google Books . Aquila writes there: "Her first record, 'I Will Follow Him' [...], reflected the traditional belief that males should dominate females."
  2. ^ Joel Whitburn: Top Pop Singles 1955-1993. Record Research, Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin 1994, p. 378.
  3. ^ Joel Whitburn: Billboard Book of Top 40 R&B and Hip-Hop Hits. Billboard Books, New York 2006, p. 369.
  4. ↑ Article in Lima News
  5. ↑ 1963 - from Peggy March's Vita. Compare also: Günter Ehnert (Hrsg.): Hit Bilanz. German chart singles 1956–1980. Taurus Press, Hamburg 1990, p. 134.
  6. ↑ Mauricio Quadrio: CBS Has 10th Anniversary. In: Billboard. August 24, 1963. Retrieved July 4, 2019.
  7. ↑ Catalog number: RCA 2732
  8. ^ Joel Whitburn: Top Pop Albums 1955-1996. Record Research, Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin 1996, p. 488.
  9. ↑ Franck Pourcel - Biography (English)
  10. ↑ lyricstranslate.com.
  11. ↑ Steven Mintz: Huck's Raft. A History of American Childhood. P. 285.