Hitting the High Notes

This past weekend, I was watching a marathon line-up of I Love the 70’s on VH1.

One of the segments featured the 1975 hit, Lovin’ You by Minnie Riperton. Do you remember that song?

I remember right where I was the first time I heard her hit that extremely high note. I was working at the Dairy Queen, in the back making DQ Dudes. We always had a radio going back there and one of my co-workers said, “Hey, check out this high note!”

I was amazed.

Yesterday, when that song was played on VH1, I wondered exactly how high that note was. The highest note ever written in Classical music for a human voice was in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and that was a high F (four spaces above the treble staff).

I played along on the piano with Minnie Riperton. She goes above it to a high F-sharp.

You go, girl!

You know the part I'm talking about:

". . . La la la la laaa, la-la la la la-la,

Doodn-doo, doo-dooooh,

(*** dogs begin howling in the next county***)


Click here for a live performance of her singing it. Actually, this live performance is better than the recorded one.

Minnie Riperton passed away in 1979 from breast cancer. I guess the angels needed some help in hitting the high notes.