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One of the discs I was most looking forward to hearing was Ronnie Milsap’s gospel-and-hymns collection Then Sings My Soul. Turns out I shouldn’t have been so excited, because instead of the rootsy, down-home hillbilly soul I had in mind, the six songs on the advance sampler sound like Ronnie Milsap backed by a karaoke tape. Bummer.
More fascinating is the truthy-sounding wikifact that the “I vi IV V” chord progression that “Stand by Me” uses–the so-called “50s progression” that underpins songs as varied as “Duke of Earl,” “Every Breath You Take,” and “2 Become 1”–is known in Finnish as “Aku Ankka kierto,” or the “Donald Duck progression.” I’m not so much fascinated by the “Donald Duck” thing as I am by the fact that the Finns–the Finns!(?)–have a special name for that particular progression that is theirs and theirs alone. And it is “Donald Duck.” I hope it’s true.
