Scatting: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"Bada bada bwi ba ba bada bo. Baba ba da bo. Bwi ba ba bada bo. Baba ba da bo."''|'''[[Scatman John]]''', ''"[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2wMsnE2cvI Scatman!]"''}}

 

Compare [[Indecipherable Lyrics]] and [[Word Salad Lyrics]]. Many [[Lyrical Tic|Lyrical Tics]] are this.

{{examples}}

* [[Ella Fitzgerald]]'s facility with scatting is legendary.

* Benjamin "Scatman" Crothers got his nickname for his absolute skill at scatting, which he did in nearly every song he sang.

* Just about every up-tempo song by [[Roger Miller]] is bound to have some of this.

** His song "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3-EwMJDQek Dang Me]" may be his best example, as it ''opens'' with scatting, and has further scatting all through the rest of it.

* Ray Barretto's song ''Acid''.

* "The Great Gig In The Sky" by [[Pink Floyd]].

* [[The Police]] songs that do this include "Masoko Tanga", "De Do Do Do De Da Da Da" (yes, it's the song name, and it gets a [[Title Drop]] in the chorus!), and "A Kind of Loving". Sting [[Lyrical Tic|likes to interject his popular "Eee-yooooh!"]] into a lot of songs as well.

* Some songs by Liv Kristine.

** And in some cases, Draiman decided that any lyrics he wrote didn't have quite as much punch as the Scatting, so he left it in. Examples include ''The Game'' (Ramidi ma ma ba di ma, ramidi ma ma din do) and ''This Moment'' (Bi-ya-ta! Bi-ya-ta![[hottip:*: Though Draiman claims [http://twitter.com/#!/DAVIDMDRAIMAN/status/77664430401404929 he was actually saying "Better Yet (ah!)"]).

{{quote| "''Boom na da mmm dum na ema / Da boom na da mmm dum na ema / Go!''."}}

** Seed, BBK, Twist and Ball Tongue are a few examples.

* Most [[Dead Can Dance]] songs are like this. As are most songs by Lisa Gerrard since going solo.

** And "One Perfect Sunrise" by Orbital, which features her.

** "Girl" has a rather amusing background harmonic vocal accompaniment of [[Getting Crap Past the Radar|'tit tit tit tit']] appear before the chorus.

** "Hey Jude" has about four minutes of "nana na na".

* Chacarron Macarron, also known as the "Ualuealuealeuale" song, is a dance-esque song that's comprised entirely of...''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ85cZS0_jY something]''. The singer originally composed the song using the David Draiman method mentioned above -- he ''intended'' to write actual lyrics, but decided at some point that the mumbling sounded too funny to drop.

* The song "Davnesaur," by To Slay Zombie Newton, contains a few genuine lyrics, but mostly it's nonsense that the band members claim is an ancient Scandinavian language... but were actually written by a random syllable generator on a graphing calculator.

* Adriano Celentano's "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BqNcXz-tsc Prisencolinensinainciusol]", gibberish specifically written to sound like English.

* The much-covered song "Land Of A Thousand Dances" consists of pretty much nothing but "na na na na na na". [[Dave Barry]] once commented on how easy it was to make song lyrics by quoting the chorus in its entirety.

** From the same duo, ''The Boxer'''s choruses go "Lie la-lie, lie la-lie lie lie la-lie..."

* The plurality of Roxette's "The Look": "Na." I.e, "Na na na na na, na na na na na, na na na na na na na, na na na na na, na na na na na na na na, she's got the look."

* Nadia Oh has a song called "Hot Like Wow". The final minute is nothing but chorus and la la la la.

* ''[[Lady Gaga|Rah rah ah-ah-ah / Ro mah ro-mah-mah / Gaga Ooh-la-la!'']]

* [[REM|R.E.M.'s]] "Endgame" is mostly instrumental, aside from some wordless harmonizing and Michael Stipe singing variants on "ba ba ba" a few times.

* "Rubber Biscuit" by the Chips. If you don't know it, you might be more familiar with the Blues Brothers versions. [http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/WWW/tracking/pc/rubber_biscuit.htm The original does have lyrics of sorts, though...]

* "Godspeed" by BT, featuring Jan Johnston. "If, if, if, nyow nyow aah", and "uh hoooo, you you you". The vocables appear to be snippets from their earlier collaboration "Remember".

* Nightcrawlers - Push The Feeling On (Dub of Doom and its re-remixes): "Er/Their lives again/Er/Their li/To pull us/Er"([[Looped Lyrics]]). The rarely-heard original had full lyrics, which were chopped up into vocables in the remixes.

* The refrain of Opus III's "It's a Fine Day": "Nanananana nee na nee nah". This part was [[Sampled Up]] ( [[Subliminal Seduction|backmasked]]) by Orbital in "Halcyon".

* [[Rise Against]] actually performed a [[Scatting|Simlish]] version of [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAf5XTOrPM4 Savior (youtube link)] written for a Sims 3 advertising campaign. It is remarkably similar to the actual version ("it kills me not to know this" becomes "ta kil me naka no dis", for example), suggesting that either Simlish is closer to English than thought or that Rise Against is unimaginative.

** Doughty's live album ''Smofe + Smang'' features an early version of "Grey Ghost" where he admits he didn't write any lyrics for the bridge yet, so he has to sing "fake words". The title of the album actually comes from part of that very same scat bridge.

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGM0-G8x_pg Haru Mamburu] by the Russian band Nogu Svelo! has "lyrics" made of vaguely English-like gibberish.

* [[Nirvana]]'s "Tourette's" has no lyrics, just lots of screaming that sounds vauguely like it might be lyrics. Of course, given that some people think all Nirvana lyrics sound like "[[Indecipherable Lyrics|garbled, vaguely word-like gibberish]]", many are convinced that is also true of this song, and that there are real lyrics there if you listen hard enough. There aren't. It's just gibberish.

** To make it worse, Kurt Cobain had habits of decending into this anyway. If you listen to a lot of the unreleased stuff on the "With The Lights Out" box set you'll know what I mean.

** and there's also Ole Le-La, another song whose chorus is mostly nonsense sounds

* Mashina's (another Israely band, this troper is busy tonight) רכבת לילה לקהיר (Night Train to Cairo) also has a chorus of Oh-oh oh oh-oh-oh oh...

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oavMtUWDBTM I am very glad, because I'm finally returning back home (Trololo)] by Eduard Khil, was performed with [[Scatting]] in place of the original lyrics, ostensibly for artistic reasons. Since then it's been embraced as the official [[Troll]] song of the Internet. Go figure.

* The fadeout of "What Can't Be Seen" by [[Everything Else]] features the melody scatted at a faster tempo.

* Many songs by [[Imogen Heap]].

* Scott Walker starts doing this over the fade out of "The Old Man's Back Again (Dedicated To The Neo-Stalnist Regime)".

* Towards the end of [[The Doors]]' "Cars Hiss By My Window", Jim Morrison takes a wordless vocal solo where he imitates a wah-wah guitar (or possibly a harmonica) with his voice: "whoooh, wha-wha-whaoo-ooh...".

* [[Jason Mraz]] does quite a bit of this, especially in his live performances. It features at least once in the majority of his songs.

 

 

* Scatting is omnipresent in the soundtrack for ''[[.hack|.hack//Legend of the Twilight]]''.

* "Rose and Release" from ''[[Revolutionary Girl Utena]]'' is a version of the Opening sung entirely in "la-s".

 

 

== Film ==

* Played with in ''[[The Simpsons]] Movie'': as [[Green Day]] perform the Simpsons theme, the 'lyrics' are shown on their prompter as a scrolling wall of "Da Da Da Da Da Da..."

* [[Charlie Chaplin]]'s one and only speaking role as [[The Tramp]] in ''[[Modern Times]]'' features him singing a gibberish song that sounds vaguely French/Italian. Chaplin didn't want the character to be limited by language barriers.

* Most of the musical score of ''Winged Migration'' is Scat... sometimes it's even hard to distinguish from percussions. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc_qpk2d-ao&feature=PlayList&p=36636ACDD5863876&playnext=1&index=17 The trailer].

== Live Action TV ==

* Many of the musical cues in ''[[Hannah Montana]]'' are of Miley scat-singing whoa-ohs and yeah-yeahs for a line or two.

* In ''[[The Mighty Boosh]]'', music snob Howard mocks Vince for being confused and unsettled by the formless flow of jazz. He starts scatting, which causes Vince to panic and punch him.

* For what was believed to be one week only, the [[Theme Tune]] to the game show ''[[All Star Blitz]]'' had some scatting mixed in. The results were… [http://www.gameshowthemesongs.net/sounds/All%20Star%20Blitz/ALLSTARBLITZ.mp3 surreal].

* Vic and Bob use it in the theme tune for ''[[The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer]]''. Vic also uses it when "singing a song in the club style" in ''[[Shooting Stars]]''.

* Various [[Ultraman]] series, Mirrorman, and Fireman all feature a variation of the scat chant "Wandabadadbada, Wandabadadabada" featured for the Science patrol teams.

{{quote| "All this 'ho dee ho dee ho' stuff is pretty clear, but what do you suppose is a ‘[[Jive Turkey|hoochie coocher]]’?"}}

 

* Many [[Cirque Du Soleil]] songs have this.

* In the misleadingly cheerful opening number of [[Leonard Bernstein]]'s ''Trouble in Tahiti'', members of the [[Greek Chorus]] sing scat phrases like "skid a lit day" and "ratty boo, sofa so far so."

* The intro and outtro of "Setting Your Sights" from ''Vanities: A New Musical'', as well as the ending of "Looking Good", use "do do da da da" singing.

* "Alleluia" from [[Leonard Bernstein]]'s ''Mass'' is mostly scat syllables sung in canon.

** Even the regular ''[[Metroid]]'' games [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98RdRDaOsNg have it at times].

* ''[[Loco Roco]]'' used this for all its music in order to have a universally accepted soundtrack that wouldn't need translating. The nonsense sung by the Rocos sounds uncannily like real language due to the way it's structured, but it's just cute-sounding gibberish.

* A number of the playable songs in ''[[Magicians Quest Mysterious Times]]'' feature random vocals. "Cerulean" has a guy yelling "Yeaaah, behbeh!" at several points, and "Corusican Betrayal" has a wordless soprano wail in it, for example.

** The choir added into the [[Big Bad|Bowser]] battle themes from both ''[[Super Mario Galaxy]]'' and ''[[Super Mario Galaxy 2]]'' whenever Bowser takes damage.

** Technically it has lyrics - it is part of an opera, after all - but the SNES couldn't really handle extended voice recordings, so they're displayed as subtitles while the MIDI voice synth goes "ooo-OOOOO-ooo-OOOO".

* The Grand Fonic Hymn from ''[[Tales of the Abyss]]'', made up of seven short verses, uses single-syllable words that don't come from any particular language, used to explain why only the first verse works like a magic spell. Each verse apparently has a "deeper meaning" that must be learned before its magic can manifest.

* As [[The Sims]] characters [[Speaking Simlish|speak Simlish]], the songs heard on the radio are also sung in gibberish, in all three installments and their respective expansions. The Sims: Unleashed hired a real band (Zydeco Flames) to perform their songs in Simlish, and The Sims 2: University started the now-famous series tradition of getting a whole selection of artists to re-record their songs in Simlish for each expansion.

* On ''[[Katamari Damacy]]'''s pre-game tutorial level, there's a version of the theme song that just has the "na na na na na na na" for vocals, on top of the backing beat from the NES version of ''[[Lode Runner]]''.

* ''Awakening The Chaos'', [[SNK Boss|v-13's]] theme from [[Blaz Blue]], has lots of [[Ominous Latin Chanting|Ominous Wordless Chanting]].

* Many songs in the [[Dawn of War|Dawn of War II]] soundtrack feature a choir singing made-up lyrics. Some (Angels of Death, Khaine's Wrath, For The Craftworld) are presumably supposed to represent the fictional languages of the 40K universe, while in others (The Green Horde Rises, The Great Devourer) it's most likely just for effect.

* ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'' has a really cool version of this. The Hymn of the Fayth ''sounds'' like Japanese, but it's actually nonsense syllables. However, when you ''rearrange'' the syllables into a square, and read them from top to bottom, it actually ''does'' spell out words in Japanese. They roughly translate into "Praise be to Yevon".

** Into a [[Square Enix|Square]], you say?

* Much of the music in ''[[Black and White]]'' and its sequel has wordless singing or chanting.

* In some entries in the ''[[My Sims]]'' series, some songs have Simlish vocals. There's a lovely example in ''My Sims Kingdom'', which plays on The Royal Academy island. Also, in ''My Sims'', a Sim can activate a karaoke machine, and sing the song in his or her particular voice.

* The song "Rainy Rose" and its remix "Poison Queen" from the ''[[God Hand]]'' soundtrack (Shannon/Demon Shannon's boss themes, respectively) are entirely sung in "nya"/"nyo" sounds.

* How come ''[[Halo]]'' is not mentioned anywhere? From the moment you hit the main menu in Halo/Halo:CE you are treated to wordless chanting.

** In some parts of the second game you can find holograms of the Prophets chanting the series theme in alien gibberish.

* Wasn't the entire point of The Urbz to build a game around [[Black Eyed Peas|The Black Eyed Peas]] [[Scatting]]?

* Much of the soundtrack of ''[[The Neverhood]]'' consists of this. To quote the liner notes of the official soundtrack: "Note to the listener: Should you choose to sing along to any of the following songs, we wish you luck. You're gonna need it!"

* A few ''[[Dance Dance Revolution]]'' songs break into this. "Golden Sky" earns bonus points for the lyrics devolving into "la de da" ''at two separate points'' in the chorus.

** "Wild Rush", whose vocal samples are also used in "Genom Screams" and "Paranoia Survivor", as well the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfWys2g3q28 "Lavande Bleu"] music in ''[[Ray Crisis]]'' and the outdoor shooting range music in ''[[Silent Scope]] 2''.

* Most of the music in [[Nie R]] is sung in a made up language, stated to be a "possible future evolution of our current languages" by the composer. There's several versions of the ending theme depending on the ending and at least 1 of them is in English though.

* Eve's Asylum Int Music from [[Little Big Planet]] 2

 

 

== Western Animation ==

* [[Phineas and Ferb]] have a lot of fun with this trope when they sing "Gitchy Gitchy Goo".

* 75% of the background music in the Nickelodeon version of ''[[Doug]]''...and it was ''[[Crowning Music of Awesome|awesome]]''.

* Bradford Marsalis capped off his ''[[Space Ghost Coast to Coast]]'' appearance by leading the cast in a round-robin scat session (although [[Comedic Sociopathy|Zorak had to threaten him with a laser rifle first]]).