After the number-five hit " My World Is Empty Without You" and the number-nine hit " Love Is Like an Itching in My Heart," the Supremes began a run of four more number-one hits: " You Can't Hurry Love," " You Keep Me Hangin' On," " Love Is Here and Now You're Gone," and " The Happening." The group performed the hit song on The Mike Douglas Show on November 3, 1965. "I Hear a Symphony", later issued on an album of the same name, became the Supremes' sixth number-one hit in the United States. īillboard called the song a "blockbuster" as well as a "well-written rhythm ballad with pulsating beat and top vocal work." Cash Box described it as a "rhythmic, medium-paced romancer about a lucky gal who’s head-over-heels in love with the special guy of her dreams." In a 1968 interview, Diana Ross said that this was one of her favorite songs to perform, even though its key register posed some challenges. "Symphony" was released as a single in place of another Holland-Dozier-Holland Supremes song, " Mother Dear", which had been recorded in the same style as their earlier hits. The result was "I Hear a Symphony," a song with a more complex musical structure than previous Supremes releases. Holland-Dozier-Holland therefore set about breaking their formula and trying something new. We will release nothing less than Top Ten product on any artist and because the Supremes' world-wide acceptance is greater than the other artists, on them we will only release number-one records.
In mid-1965, the producers came to realize they had fallen into a rut when the Supremes' " Nothing but Heartaches" failed to make it to the Top Ten, missing it by just one position and breaking the string of number-one Supremes hits initiated with " Where Did Our Love Go." Motown chief Berry Gordy was displeased with the performance of "Nothing but Heartaches," and circulated a memo around the Motown offices that read as follows: Songs twice its length have failed to achieve the grandiosity I Hear a Symphony did, and so I truly hope this song will be as immortalized in pop culture as it has been in my heart.The Supremes enjoyed a run of hits through 19 under the guidance of writer/producers Holland–Dozier–Holland. I Hear a Symphony is the true display of passion, love, musicianship, and orchestration all combined into one-hundred-and-eighty-five seconds. I wasn’t aware of Fry’s music when this was released, and so I don’t know how well it did upon release, but I feel like the sudden hype and attention to not only this song but the entire album is absolutely justified. This is a song that I’m so glad got a second life through Tik Tok. It’s a statement of Fry’s genius, pure and simple. It combines some elements previously showcased, such as Cory’s love for that Disney/Broadway style, as well as his utilization of strings, which were drip fed from the very beginning of the album all the way into I Hear a Symphony. From 80s inspired power pop dance tunes, to ballads, to indie/electronic mellow songs, then to this. Though that track didn’t close out the album (I mean, let’s be real, A Night at the Opera ended with Bohemian Rhapsody, God Save the Queen was only a little epilogue to that masterpiece), Cody Fry’s opus truly ends the journey that is Flying. To me, I Hear a Symphony had the same energy as songs like Bohemian Rhapsody. What an absolutely beautiful way to end the song.
And then, in the most elegant way, Cody Fry sings out the same line that closed the first verse: “And now I hear a symphony,” alone with a piano. In the most Disney fashion possible, Cody reintroduces the melody for a third time soaring out into the actual climax, which will give you goosebumps from head to toe. The strings sing along with the vocals before having another break, this time bringing the song to what seems like the climax, but later listeners will find out is just a tease. The movement it implies from that first solo vocal line foreshadows the chromatic nature of the track, which is reeled back with an orchestra break before the second verse. It’s elegant, catchy, and very complex in its harmonial interpretation. On a long car ride, we sat in silence simply soaking in the album.Īnd then came the last track, I Hear a Symphony. In a surprising grand return in 2021, 2017’s song I Hear a Symphony showed a new audience the beauty of Cody Fry’s genius in this simple yet complex three-minute magnum opus.īeing the disconnected individual that I am, I didn’t discover I Hear a Symphony through Tik Tok, but my girlfriend did, which led her to show me Cody’s entire album containing the song titled Flying.
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