Mike and Marcia meet at the Pearl Onion, where he, claiming an encyclopedic knowledge of popular music, sings only one plaintive tune.

He was in the kitchen, checking over the refreshment-dials in preparation for the party, whistling a plaintive, crooked tune.

As he moved down the alley, Bolan heard the melancholy wail of a biwa, its plaintive tune sounding surprisingly like the blues.

It was nearing sunset now, and songbirds were shrilling their last plaintive tunes before nightfall.

Then she began to hum a wordless, plaintive tune.

As he left, the clow was still playing its plaintive tune, remote in the depths of the building.

From the far end, in a corner where the long huts joined, came the muted sound of singing, a plaintive tune she did not know.

She was humming a plaintive tune in a clear, bright alto that belied her advanced age.

The Indian guides had retired to their own campfire, and one of them had taken out his pipes and was blowing a soft, plaintive tune.

The sounds needed only rhythm and arrangement to form a plaintive tune.