Looking for a song that goes ding

February 3, 2011 10:53 AM

I heard a song in a bookstore today. I went and asked at the counter but it was playing off a mix-cd an employee had left in the store a while ago. There was no information on the cd. The song had minimal instrumentation, the most distinctive part of it was a high-pitched 'ding' sound, higher pitched than a triangle. It was a duet, I could barely make out what I think was a woman singing. The lyrics I remember from the louder, male voice were something about "the palm of my hand" (or "your hand") and the word "no" repeated. Anyone know what song this is?
posted by Kattullus to Media & Arts (21 answers total)

I've never heard it, but you could always go back in and ask them to play it while running something like soundhound on your phone.
posted by monkeymadness at 11:03 AM on February 3, 2011

Response by poster: I don't have a phone capable of running Soundhound. I like the internet, but I prefer to leave it behind when I leave the house.
posted by Kattullus at 11:10 AM on February 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Google seems to tell me that it's Alison Krauss, "In the Palm of Your Hand", or Streetlight Manifesto's "Giving Up, Giving In". Both have repetitions of "no" at the front of lyrics and "palm of your hand".

Could the ding be a glockenspiel? My first thought was that it could be "Black is the Color" by Espers, but the vocals are fairly understandable in that one.
posted by LionIndex at 11:12 AM on February 3, 2011

Loud and fast, softer and slow? More current or clearly from some time in the more or less distinct back then?

What else was on the CD? Any clue from the other music you heard (all of one 'type' or various?)
posted by From Bklyn at 11:19 AM on February 3, 2011

Response by poster: It wasn't Alison Krauss, Streetlight Manifesto or Espers. The ding could be a glockenspiel, but it was only a single note, repeated.

It was mid-tempo. The song was fairly soft. The music was played at a fairly low volume, so it's hard for me to say exactly how soft it was. The mix was very random, hip hop, bluegrass, indie and so on.

The song sounded fairly contemporary, I think it was probably electronic, but I couldn't make the track out clearly enough to be 100% certain.
posted by Kattullus at 11:37 AM on February 3, 2011

You could try checking in this recent thread about male/female duets.
posted by otolith at 11:43 AM on February 3, 2011

A SongMeanings query for every song which contains "palm", "hand" and "no" - plus listening to samples of the songs on Amazon's MP3 site - might be tedious but similar methods have been fruitful for me in the past.
posted by julthumbscrew at 12:02 PM on February 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

Something by Stars? Lots of m/f duets...
posted by ethnomethodologist at 12:12 PM on February 3, 2011

Response by poster: Nothing by Stars, none of the songs in that SongMeanings query that looked promising, nor any of the duets in that thread that seemed likely.
posted by Kattullus at 1:33 PM on February 3, 2011

It might be a local group. Does that employee still work at the bookstore?
posted by Sidhedevil at 1:39 PM on February 3, 2011

If the store has internet connected computers you could ask them to play it and run one of those song-id websites through their computer.
posted by LobsterMitten at 2:10 PM on February 3, 2011

Response by poster: The singer didn't sound like an Icelander. If anything, he sounded American, but there wasn't a pronounced accent.
posted by Kattullus at 2:10 PM on February 3, 2011

Response by poster: Oh, and the people at the desk didn't know who'd made the mix.
posted by Kattullus at 2:10 PM on February 3, 2011

Your description of the instrumentation reminds me a lot of Psapp. Could it be "Cosy in the Rocket," perhaps? It has the word "palm" (but not "in your/my hand"), and there are a lot of o rhymes (go, no, know). (Song can be found on the "Grey's Anatomy" soundtrack, but if you like the song, I suggest giving their other albums a try!)
posted by mittenedsex at 3:06 PM on February 3, 2011

Response by poster: Not Psapp either.

The high-pitched 'ding' note was repeated, it was rhythmic rather than melodic. It was the word "no" repeated a number of times (i.e. "no no no no" though it could be "know know know know" too).
posted by Kattullus at 4:52 PM on February 3, 2011

This doesn't match all of your criteria, but perhaps the New Pornographers "Testament to Youth in Verse"? The chorus "the bells ring no no no no no no" would fit...and it could have been a cover of this song that had less instrumentation.
posted by Bella Sebastian at 6:20 PM on February 3, 2011

Maybe Jay Sean - Man's World (Ramta Jogi)?
posted by amyms at 6:36 PM on February 3, 2011

I seriously doubt this is it, but could it be The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song by the Flaming Lips?

Like I said, though, I doubt it.
posted by KChasm at 7:06 PM on February 3, 2011

Sparse, male/female duet to me triggers The xx.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 8:18 PM on February 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: None of these, either. I went to the bookstore again but no one there today knew anything about it either. I guess I'll have to file this away as a mystery.
posted by Kattullus at 7:54 AM on February 4, 2011

I hope I'm not the only geek who's profoundly disappointed that the identity of the "ding!" song will remain a mystery. :-(
posted by julthumbscrew at 11:00 AM on February 4, 2011 [1 favorite]