“It’s paralysing”: Linda Ronstadt names the most beautiful melody in pop music
While she might not necessarily have been the most prolific songwriter, having only co-written a handful of her own hits, Linda Ronstadt was an accomplished vocalist and musician and knew exactly what was required to execute a song to perfection. With a career that spanned from the 1960s until her retirement in the early 2010s, she managed to fight her way to the top through her impassioned vocal performances and is regarded by many to have had a talent far beyond her contemporaries.
Her career began performing alongside her siblings in Tucson, Arizona, as a teenager, before she eventually moved to California after dropping out of university and formed the folk rock group Stone Poneys. The group had moderate success with the single ‘Different Drum‘, which was written by The Monkees’ Mike Nesmith, but after just three studio albums and limited attention, the group disbanded before the end of the ‘60s.
Ronstadt quickly decided she would pursue a career as a solo artist, and her career then began to take off, with her biggest hits coming from her versions of the obscure soul cut ‘You’re No Good’ and The Everly Brothers’ ‘When Will I Be Loved’ in the middle of the 1970s. These releases are really what propelled Ronstadt into the spotlight, and it was her ability to take a simple vocal melody and turn it into something spellbinding that was the main feature of her craft that grabbed attention.
As a vocalist, the main thing you’re always looking for in a song is how to be able to find a melody that fits a song, and how to best convey the emotions felt in the lyrics through changes in your vocal intonation. Ronstadt would’ve been largely influenced by folk singers from her earliest days, but some of her other major loves in her earlier career stemmed from country music by the likes of Hank Williams, and jazz stars like Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday.
However, above all was her love of The Beach Boys, and the almost effortless melodies that songwriter Brian Wilson managed to weave through his compositions. The harmonies were sumptuous, and the ways in which they combined with the lavish musical arrangements created magical moments on record that many, including Ronstadt, were entranced by. Their 1966 album, Pet Sounds, is regarded as one of the finest examples of this that the group ever produced, and one song in particular has always stood out to Ronstadt as being the best they ever created.
Speaking about the work of Wilson, Ronstadt claimed in an interview that “I don’t think there’s anyone his equal in popular music for the last 50 years. They were really deep, profound emotions that came out of a lot of pain.” Specifically, she referenced the song ‘Don’t Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)’ as having “one of the most beautiful arcs of a melody I’ve ever heard,” adding: “How can you sing about not talking, about silence? It’s paralysing and galvanising at the same time.”
Wilson was a master of melody, and it’s no surprise that someone like Ronstadt picked out a song that is ostensibly simple in its structure, but so elaborate in the way it slinks between keys and chords, with Wilson’s vocals being the final key component.
