“Yeah”, “look out”, “whoa” “la”and other such words are sometimes not only very effective in songs, they can be the best part. My guess is that several come about because once recording begins it’s sometimes obvious that a section is too empty and needs filling up or livening up or just padding out with something. Others feel as if they’ve been written in from the start. Sometimes it becomes almost the defining characteristic of that particular vocalist. Michael Jackson’s high pitched hiccups for example. Apparently Quincy Jones, his producer on the famous Thriller album, insisted he ration these, as Michael was putting them in everywhere, testing Quincy’s patience. Mighty effective though on Billy Jean and Black or White for example. Sometimes less is best, although personally I find that difficult in all walks of life.
A personal favourite of mine was Holly Johnson of Frankie Goes to Hollywood. He was fantastic at making these types of vocal noises, just listen to the start of “Relax”, he even makes “weh-hey” sound great. He continues like that to superb effect all through the track.
Can’t leave out the Beatles of course, and John Lennon’s “Oh look out” at the end of “Polythene Pam” on Abbey Road always thrills. The Beatles most famous use of “yeah” was very early in their careers on “She Loves You”, which was followed by “yeah, yeah, yeah” in the chorus. It made the female fans scream themselves into a frenzy. You just can’t imagine the song without those “yeahs”.
“Hey Jude” has one of the most well known extended fade outs of any song, mostly consisting of “Na, na, na, na na na na”, which most of the world is happy enough to sing along with.
“500 Miles” by The Proclaimers includes a “da, da da” section which people still love. Many a Christmas party……! “The Look” by the fantastic Roxette contains both “la, la la la’s” and “da da da da’s” to very good effect. What an under rated band they were. “Joyride”, “It Must Have Been Love” and the utterly brilliant “Listen to Your Heart” show how fantastic pop songs can be.
“What’s Up” by 4 Non Blondes has a really catchy chorus which includes “Hey yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah”
My newspaper recently ran an article about Simple Minds’ “Don’t You Forget About Me”. one of my favourite songs of that era. The end of the song consists of Jim Kerr singing “la, la, la, la” over and over again. Apparently the lyrics hadn’t been finished so he was improvising, but everyone liked it so much ( me too) they kept it in.
This reminded me of “Land of a Thousand Dances” by Wilson Picket (also recorded by Tina Turner, Tom Jones, Fats Domino and the J. Geils Band and many others), which has a big section consisting of “na’s”. Many people know this section and sing it loudly after a few drinks (me too) at parties but many do not know the name of the song. Seemingly neither the “na’s” nor that section of the melody were in the original song as written by Chris Jenner, but were later improvised by Frankie “Cannibal” Garcia, lead singer of Cannibal and the Headhunters, when he forgot the lyrics. This became the most memorable part of the song. Frankie is not on the credits and presumably receives no royalties. How cruel life can be.
Arguably the loudest, longest most exciting “yeah” of all time belongs to the Who’s Roger Daltrey near the end of “Won’t Get Fooled Again”. I’ve been lucky enough to hear them perform this song live many times, most recently at Wembley Arena in 2013, and I thought Roger might not really try and go for it, but he did – he’s still got it. It must rip the vocal chords to shreds.
I’m guessing, but all of this probably originates from scat singing in jazz. Scat singing is using nonsense syllables in a very musical fashion. Ella Fitzgerald was a famous and highly skilled vocalist who used this style in some of her songs. Some references say that Al Jolson singing on “That Haunting Melody” in 1911 was one of the earliest examples. Others (Jelly Roll Morton–what a great name) credit Joe Sims from Mississippi. I very clearly recall Cleo Laine a leading UK jazz singer, scat singing on prime time TV programs in my youth. More modern day singers like the great Whitney Houston used something similar- listen to near the end of “I Wanna Dance with Somebody”.Other singers using this technique include Maria Carey and the incomparable Leona Lewis -just listen to the spine tingling soaring scat style in “Run”, one of my favourite songs of all time. These female singers possess(ed) a very large vocal range which makes the scat singing hugely impressive. Again less is best perhaps, and overdone it can be tiresome as in some X Factor contestants. Some authorities have suggested that jazz musicians work out their solos or riffs vocally first, enabling them to become adept at that improvised vocal style. Further research conjectures that scat has its origins in African traditional music, where the human voice was/is used as an instrument.