Los Doggies

This particular bumper is in B-flat Major with tertial harmonies, although Delilah comes in many flavors, and often in D as per her namesake. In whatever key, it’s a delightful melody sung in harmony by man and woman. Was this the way Delilah’s parents called out to her baby ears?

I’m not sure if Delilah is a fictional entity, or if like Casey Kasem she’s been in radio limbo for years, not quite alive nor dead but rather in some thanatoid state. Of course, ghosts are known to possess radio waves, and radio hosts being disembodied voices are essentially ghosts themselves, though it is said that video, a poltergeist, once killed the radio ghost, but I digress.

To quote Ben, he wanted to write a song to “teach kids how to cuss,” as well as learn “what notes they can cuss from, theoretically and correctly,” and so from the reverberated shower (where the best ideas come from), he came up with this dirty little chestnut. The double meaning of the cryptogram should be readily apparent in all its delightful childishness. Click on the melodies and drag over the chords to listen.

On the “D”, the piano plays an Ebmaj7 chord so that the melody hits the major seventh. This is a very Ben Foldsy kinda thing to do, although I can’t say why, and don’t have another example, but let’s just say he’ll often throw in Major Seventh chords and sing them (such as in the song “Narcolepsy”).

“F-10 D A” contains lots more note name puns and cryptogram fun such as in the line “See what it’s like to be flat.”

Good thing Los has long since moved out of the musical edutainment field and become a strictly emo band. Otherwise Ben Folds would’ve 25 skidooed us the eff out of there. Even better than the song is the interview he gave about the song in which he shares all of my obsessive compulsive concerns—the lack of an easy G note pun and the last note of the song mistakenly landing on the F despite saying “A”. I suppose nobody wants to get effed in the F though.

Is it possible to not like this man? He could cover one eye on his album cover and ritually sacrifice his former bandmates for all I care.

The first ‘tone’ is a series of ooey-ooies, followed by the rapid lazer beams of the second tone, while the third tone gets musical, in fifth intervals from C to G. The G is much sharper than a Perfect Fifth, giving it the feeling of a Minor Six. It’s a little scary. The tempo also slows down significantly, so it’s safe to call this “the drop.” If I were playing drums to this alarm, I’d probably go half-time here; it just feels right.

Click on the score to play/stop.

After that, the fourth tone is a rising whoot-whoot portamento, which segues nicely into the alarm clock-style buzzing below. The fifth tone was probably inspired by the even chirping of a field cricket.

The alarm finishes with a salvo of slower lazers, then loops back to the beginning and repeats throughout the night.

Look out for my forthcoming album Drums! where I play moderate rock beats live to car alarms, church bells, and a babbling brook by the side of the road.