Songs Where Two Very Different Voices Fit Perfectly

Fitzgerald keeps the melody light and even. Armstrong lets the ends of lines fall away into his rougher, more speechlike sound. When the tune passes between them, the same little memories come back in a different voice, as if each singer remembers the evening a little differently.

Cher's low, full tone and Sonny's thinner nasal sound make the alternating lines easy to follow. They sound least alike when reassuring each other in the verses. When they land on the title phrase together, the certainty comes from hearing two people make the same promise in their own voices.

Cash delivers the man's boast almost as a proclamation. Carter comes back in a higher, brighter voice, cutting the response into short phrases that make it plain she's heard this before. Listen to how quickly she takes over when it becomes her turn to say what will happen in Jackson.

Hazlewood sounds close and conversational in his low, squarely paced verses. When Sinatra takes over as Phaedra, she floats the melody and the backing falls into a lilting pattern. The repeated changes make the next singer feel like an interruption from another place.

As the arrangement swells, Terrell sends the melody straight out and Gaye bends the ends of his lines into little replies. Listen near the end for how much more freely they answer each other than they did at the start. The two singers make a promise and then sound as if they're finding more to say about it.

Nicks drags a little smoke through the long vowels of her phrases while Petty pushes his words out with more of a nasal edge. The guitar keeps the same terse pace when he enters. The shift in voice makes it sound like someone in the room has finally decided to answer back.

Mercury turns syllables into quick bursts and throws his voice high as the song builds. Bowie can make a line in the middle of that rush sound almost spoken. Listen for the switch from the uneasy back-and-forth to Bowie's sustained appeal near the end, when he holds the room long enough for the words to sink in.

Rogers opens low and a little grainy, with the calm of someone talking at the kitchen table. Parton gives her phrases a bounce and a bright lift at the end. In the chorus you can follow either voice without losing the tune, a small musical demonstration of two people moving in the same direction.

Gabriel makes the verses sound like a tired account of what's gone wrong. When Bush comes in, she holds her notes clear and still, as if giving him time to hear her. The gentleness of her reply lets the song return to his distress without resolving it too soon.

Shane MacGowan starts out rough and close against the piano. Kirsty MacColl's voice comes into much sharper focus as the song expands, and her crisp timing helps turn the shared reminiscence into a fight. The tune can still bring them together after they've thrown their worst words at each other.

N'Dour's Wolof and French phrases lift and curve against the steady beat. Cherry's lower, plainer English delivery changes the shape of the line when she comes in. The recurring chorus gives those different ways of speaking and singing somewhere to meet without erasing the contrast.

Minogue gives her character a light, steady melody that makes her sound present long before the story has finished. Cave's low voice comes in close and soft enough to sound plausible. As the account darkens, hearing that same tenderness in his delivery becomes part of what's disturbing about the song.

Brandy rounds her lines and can let a note hang there. Monica often moves through the same amount of space with a firmer attack. The spoken disagreement at the start establishes who's who, and you can still hear each singer trying to get the last word once the music has given them the same chorus.

Prine sounds like he's telling you about someone across a counter. DeMent sings higher and with enough bite to get her own list of complaints across without slowing down the joke. When they sing together, the refrain has the warmth of two people who know each other's habits by heart.

Ferrer sings the bolero with a light touch, letting notes trail off at the end of a thought. Portuondo sustains hers long enough for the feeling to come into the open. Hearing her take up the melody brings out the tenderness in his restraint and the grief beneath the song's image of sleeping flowers.

Sanz presses his argument in rough bursts that hurry and then lean back against the beat. Shakira's brighter, sharply timed answers leave him very little room to finish making excuses. The beat keeps moving while the two singers try to decide where the conversation should end.

Plant brings a ragged push to a tune that keeps heading for the door. Krauss stays light and precise beside him, making the clipped phrases land cleanly over the backbeat. The lightly scruffy sound of the pair keeps the brisk chorus from feeling too polished for a song about being done with someone.

Hozier's low, earthy phrasing gives the song some weight. Karen Cowley comes in lighter, with a clear line that hangs above the guitar. Each voice has room to imagine the same resting place, which makes the macabre idea of two bodies left together sound tender.

Cooper opens low and nearly conversational, as though checking whether it's safe to ask a question. Gaga's answer is steadier and her long climb into the refrain changes the scale of the room. There's still an intimate exchange underneath the big sound because both voices have asked something of the other.

Justin Vernon's low, heavy phrasing lets him set out one person's story before Swift brings in a more fluid account of her own. Near the end they keep singing two different versions of the same misunderstanding at once. You can hear why neither of them thinks the other was listening.