Music: Compare and Contrast: Portishead vs. SCTV

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


mojo-photo-mojo.jpgOkay, I know I’ve been talking a lot about the Portishead album, which I love more and more with each passing second. But while my adoration for Third is nearly boundless, I’m not blind to its more, shall we say, “mockable” aspects. Case in point: listening to track two, “Hunter,” today, I was suddenly reminded of another piece of music that it resembles. A long-buried German cabaret number? An obscure album track from the soundtrack to an early Bond film? Norwegian funeral dirges? No, no, no: “Hunter” seems to have borrowed its dramatic piano melody and swerving chord changes from the theme to SCTV’s brilliant soap opera parody, “The Days of the Week.” After the jump, compare and contrast for yourselves. Hmm, maybe we should also be looking for hidden references to “The Great White North,” or perhaps the organ sounds came from Tex and Edna Boil’s Organ Emporium?

Portishead – “Hunter”

SCTV’s “Days of the Week” (starts about 30 seconds in)

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate