I once lived with a beautiful woman who could sing like a bird. In fact, one day (we lived on upper Comm. Ave with her sister and her bf {he's the one with the relevant quote to the post at the end), my girl (the singer) announced she was going out to run some errands, and off she went. The year was 1978, and Robert Palmer had just released "Double Fun", a very well-received effort, a couple of months before.
Well, on this album is a song titled "You Overwhelm Me". Nice love ballad. So I put the album on the turntable, placed the tonearm on the edge, spun the volume dial up to "4", knowing the Cerwin-Vegas HEDs would handle that perfectly, at 100 WPC, it would definitely fill the large two-bedroom thick-walled apartment with this awesome artist.
And then a funny thing happened. I heard my girlfriend singing. I thought she had come back in and was in the living rooom, singing (along with) the backup line. So I walked into the living room from the kitchen just as her sister Mary entered from the other hall with a puzzled look on her face. I was standing by the stereo, so I turned it down to .5 so we could talk in the same room as the speakers.
"Didn't Pam go out?" she asked.
"Yup. I heard the door close behind her."
"Then how did I just hear her singing?"
"I was just going to ask you if she had just run into your room, if she came right back for some reason", I babbled, a little unnerved by this experience. God gave me many gifts at birth. One of which is "the ear". I may or may not know the right word to describe a particular sound or effect, but I have pitch-perfect hearing. I sing about a 1/8 octave range. Maybe. But I have a knack for identifying human speech/singing. Anyway, I knew I had heard my girl. Then the needle moved over to the next song on the vinyl. And I was struck by a thought. "Maybe...on the record?...
So I said to Mary, "Wait, listen to this", turned and put the needle in the groove. "You Overwhelm Me" flooded the apartment again. And then, as the backup singer started, we both heard her sister's voice. As one, our jaws dropped as our eyes got wide. Between her being Pam's sister only a year apart in age, and my ability to discern sounds the way I could, I knew we had found a singer who gave exactly the same tonality, pitch, and shape to vocals as did my girlfriend. So Mary and I just looked at each other for a moment, shook our heads and went back to what we were doing, a little more impressed with the world at that moment.
No, my gf did not hear her own voice when we played it for her. But the sound outside your head is always different than the way you hear yourself.
So if you want to hear what my girlfriend in 1978 sounded like as a singer, click the link, let Robert start, then listen to the backup singer. And then imagine her singing to you...
Oh, the relevant quote from Mary's bf:
"Anything that's a whole lot smaller than it is IRL is cute". - N.S.
The hippos is a perfect example. If you see a hippo IRL, you had better pray you're not on foot. Because if you're on foot without a high-powered rifle and the knowledge to shoot it correctly, you will likely die. The hippo is the deadliest animal in Africa, more deadly than Lion, Rhino, or Croc.