What do you mean by "music"?

Music To Watch Girls By; Andy Williams' Greatest Hits Volume 2

I got caught in the trap of “The Sixth Sense”, a movie made by M. Night Shyamalan. I bought it hook line and sinker. K. didn’t. She had it figured out in ten minutes. I have brilliant sisters. So, like everyone else, whenever I watch a flicker-show by Mr. Shyamalan, I keep a lookout for “the twist”.

In the movie “Signs”, also by Mr. Shyamalan, the title of the movie itself teases the mind and possibly confounds the viewer. The beginning of the show concerns itself with the sudden appearance of crop circles all over the world. Anyone would naturally assume that the film title refers to these harvest yield-reducing phenomena. But it doesn’t. I won’t tell you what it actually does refer to in the interest of letting you, dear reader, find out for yourself.

Like most theatre fans, I honed in on the word play in the title of Stephen Sondheim’s 1973 musical “A Little Night Music”. Audiences and musicians have, for years, commonly refered to Mozart’s Serenade No. 13 in G Major as “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik”. The English word-for-word translation for Mozart’s serenade nickname provided Mr. Sondheim with the title for his musical. And there, audience members assume, do we find the tail end of the gag. “Eine Kleine Nactmusik”. “A Little Night Music”. Ha ha ha. Very amusing. Few theatre spectators, though, follow the word gag all the way to its actual conclusion. The “night music” refers to the romantic din generally associated with an evening rendezvous of love, of which, many occur in this story.

I remember “Music To Watch Girls By”, (horrible grammar, by the way,) from the aforementioned bus rides to elementary school. I probably remember the Al Hirt version. But I know that Andy Williams recorded the tune in 1967. I love the words.

The girls watch the boys while the boys watch the girls who watch the girls go by

Eye to eye, they solemnly convene to make the scene

Who listens to the words? I don’t. I’m too busy grooving on the James Bond chord sequence and falling in love with this music by which the lyrics instruct me that I am to watch girls.

Which is the name of the game, watch a guy watch a dame on any street in town

Up and down and over and across, romance is boss.

These lyrics sound like Stephen Sondheim lyrics. Or maybe Cole Porter lyrics.

It’s keepin’ track of the fact watching them watching back

That makes the world go ‘round

What’s that sound each time you hear a loud collective sigh?

They’re making music to watch girls by

Wait a minute. Play back those last two lines.

What’s that sound each time you hear a loud collective sigh?

They’re making music to watch girls by

Sooooooo, the music by which I'm to watch girls isn’t the actual tune to which someone would sing the lyrics to “Music To Watch Girls by”? Fascinating. So, if I have this right, the tune is just a tool; the real music to watch girls by sounds like a collective sigh, like this:

OOOOOoooooohhhhhh.

Or:

MMMMMmmmmmmm.

Or:

AAAAaaaaaaaahhhhhhh.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm. Interesting. Anyway, I heard it in a movie a few years ago, downloaded it onto iTunes and now it’s trapped on my iPod. Good song.

Credits: To M. Night Shyamalan, for bringing the element of surprise to his movies. Thank you, Mr. Shyamalan. Keep on twistin’.