The xylophone or the marimba gets used frequently in Jazz but rare in rock/pop music. I love the sound of it, and when I hear it I almost always love the song from day one. Some obscure Beach Boys songs used it but I had to settle for the few mainstream songs available for karaoke.
First up: Starbuck's "Moonlight Feels Right" It came out when I was a kid, simple enough for a seven year old to appreciate. It's very mellow, perhaps too mellow for the young Jack's crowd. Still, it's a great pop song with a cool marimba solo in the middle. I felt like an old fart singing it. Anyway, Whatever Starbuck is, they didn't do a video. So, this one with sunset scenes is the best I can come up with.
the second song I performed was the Rolling Stones "Under My Thumb" It has a marimba intro performed my multi-instrumentalist Brian Jones. It's a classic mysoginist song about overcoming a "Taming Of The Shrew" like woman. I'm strong on Rolling Stones songs and this was no exception. I got a good reaction. The video is a classic British clip with the original members looking very young and in Brian Jone's case, alive.
The third song I sang was "Gone Baby Gone" originally done by the Violent Femmes. Karaoke Steve didn't have that version, he did however have the Gnarls Barkley version, which is quite faithful to the original, including the use of a xylophone. It went over well. I sang it Violent Femmes style. Here's both videos of the song.
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