Saturday, June 4, 2011

Sample Spotting: Rjd2's Ghostwriter






























I did a little crate digging today to pick up a new 45 for 7" Sundays, and stumbled upon Betty Wright's 1974 song "Secretary" and gave it a listen.  Something about it sounded vaguely familiar and I came to the conclusion that it must have been sampled by someone at somepoint.  Sure enough, with a little reasearch I found that the opening section was used in Rjd2's fantastic "Ghostwriter".  I had always recognized the Elliott Smith sample throughout the song, but never knew any of the other samples origins.  With a little more research, I have dissected the song a bit more.  Keep reading for the full breakdown and audio clips...



To start off, the guitar line at the beginning of the song comes from the beginning of Paul Desmond's "A Taste of Honey", with what sounds like a some gating to give it a little more of a staccato feel.


The "Mmmm  mmm hmmm" at 0:47 & 3:52 comes from the very end of Cream's "Outside Woman Blues" (2:22).


The aforementioned Betty Wright's "Secretary" provides the chorus that drops in at 1:32.  This is from the very beginning of her song.


The gentle "Ahhhs" and melodic vocal line at 1:03 and 2:19 respectively come from the beautiful and devastating "I Didn't Understand", the last track on Elliott Smith's XO.  This sample has been pitch-shifted to match the key of the song.


I'm not sure about this one, but I think the drums may have come from the Delfonics "Ready Or Not"... could be wrong on that one though.  Yes, this is the same song that the Fugees sampled, as well as Missy Elliott, and Lil Wayne, and on and on...


Wendy Carlos' "Timesteps" from the Clockwork Orange Soundtrack is also sampled here, along with some others that have yet to be identified.  It still boggles me how anyone can create such a seamless and natural sounding song from such disparate snippets, and have it be able stand on it's own without any context of the samples is a great feat. Knowing where some of the samples came from, I believe it is an extraordinary feat. But, with as many songs that are mashed into this pot, someone felt like they could add just one more, for good measure:

17 comments:

  1. You missed one of the most prominent track elements - Chris Rea's guitar solo from Auf Immer Und Ewig
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k53aWj3zjCY

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  2. Oh oops. That's in this version of the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0xbzCu-rsg

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  3. The Paul Desmond bit actually reminds me of Music Man by Paranoid Social Club

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  4. That Betty Wright sample was used by Slim Thug on the song 3 kings

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  5. Amazing. How people like you find all these samples amazes me! Fantastic work, I was listening to Ghostwriter and you answered all my questions!

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  6. You have done a great job. I will definitely dig it and personally recommend to my friends. I am confident they will be benefited from this site.
    Professional ghostwriter

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  7. A ghostwriter is a person who is hired to author books.This is an excellent blog post! Extremely well thought out and researched! I don’t believe I’ve seen a better article about ghost. The thesis ghost writer is a best site.

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  8. Why wont whosampled accept these submissions?

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  9. I think there is a mistake on the guitare sample. It could be this : http://queermusicheritage.com/GROSSMAN/Marc%20Schnapp%20files/Caravan%20Tonight%20-%20Caravan%20Tonight%20-%2011%20-%20Dry%20Dock%20Dreaming.mp3

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    Replies
    1. I think you are right. The Grossman track has all the parts used in the song.

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  10. I have got a version of RJD2's Ghostwriter where the voice samples differ on the 'verse'. Sounds like 'just feel... ain't... ain't...home' (can't interpret).
    I'll up it for eventual inspection: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/202208/08%20Ghostwriter.wma

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  11. Thanks for this post. Someone tell me about free ghost writer lyrics. I hope this article post Admin has huge experience about this. Please give your next article about this.

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  12. this is great! keep up th good work man!

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    ReplyDelete