Owsley was born William Reese Owsley III in 1966 in Alabama. According to his website, “he was raised in a musical household; his mother was a singer and stage actress, his father the drum major for the marching band of University of Alabama, his sister a classically trained pianist and his brother a rock guitarist.”
In his early 20s, he moved to Nashville to work as a touring guitarist. At the same time, he worked on writing his own material. In seeking a record deal, he made sure to emphasize that he didn’t want a record label shifting the emphasis of his work: “I had heard the story of Tom Scholz of the band Boston recording his first album and taking it to the record company, where he told them that it was finished and they could take it or leave it. And I thought, ‘What a cool idea!’ I didn’t want anyone else coming between me and what I was trying to accomplish.” Owsley also worked as a guitarist, backing vocalist, songwriter and producer with artists including “Charlotte Church, Kenny Loggins, Amy Grant, Michael McDonald and Rodney Crowell. He also wrote and produced for many Disney stars – among them Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, and the Jonas Brothers – and went back on the road as a guitarist for Amy Grant’s touring band. He once described himself as having moved ‘not up or down in the music industry, but sideways.'” He died at the painfully early age of only 44.
After a start in C minor, the chorus for “Coming up Roses” (1999) shifts to C major at 0:29. At 0:55, verse 2 reverts to C minor. The pattern continues throughout, with strings and a catchy wordless sing-along hook joining the mix as the fade ending leads us down a Beatle-esque path.
“If you want to see the platonic ideal of a rock band, go to YouTube and search ‘Thin Lizzy Rainbow 1978’,” (The Guardian) ” You’ll find the band’s classic lineup … in full flight, and even the degradation of old dubbed recordings can’t diminish their power. Gorham and Robertson flank Lynott, the trio in motion, the two guitarists criss-crossing and taking to the monitors, Lynott in the centre, bass held high, a beautiful, heavy-lidded man half seducing his audience and half assaulting it.”
The Irish rock band is probably best known for their 1976 release “The Boys are Back in Town,” which was a top 10 hit in the UK, Ireland, and the US; it placed 272 on the 2021 edition of Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Songs of All Time” list.
1979’s “Do Anything You Want to Do,” from the album Black Rose: A Rock Legend, reached #25 on the Irish charts and #14 in the UK. The tune starts in a de-tuned G major, shifts to Bb major at 1:37, then alternates again between the two keys.
“Look What You’ve Done To Me” was originally written for the 1980 motion picture Urban Cowboy. Penned by Scaggs and legendary producer David Foster, the tune peaked at #14 on the Billboard Top 100, and features background vocals by The Eagles.
The song fluctuates between E minor for the verses and instrumental interludes, and its relative major, G, for the choruses.
“‘Up Where We Belong’ was written for the movie An Officer and a Gentleman and won the Oscar for Best Original Song in 1983 and a Grammy for Best Pop Performance by Duo or Group With Vocal in 1983,” (Songfacts). “Island Records boss Chris Blackwell liked the idea of Cocker recording the song with Warnes, but Cocker was on tour in the Pacific Northwest at the time.
No problem: he simply flew to LA one afternoon, recorded the track with Warnes that evening, and flew back to resume the tour. Warnes and Cocker stood next to each other when they recorded this in the studio, where they had a great chemistry that carried over to live performances. ‘Off stage, I never saw him,’ Warnes said in a 2018 Songfacts interview. ‘But on stage he understood exactly what we were doing … He wasn’t going to step on my note and I wasn’t going to step on his. We felt free to take chances.'”
At 2:52, a late bridge brings a half-step modulation which carries on for the short remainder of the tune.
“L’Ultima Notte,” written by Marco Marinangeli, is featured on Josh Groban’s 2006 album Awake, which was the third top-selling classical album of the 2000s. The lyrics reflect the singer’s anguish about spending the last night with his lover: I remain alone with the memories; tomorrow everything will end; but now stay here; here with me because it will be the last night with you
The song has many modulations throughout. After alternating between G# minor for the first two verses and C minor for the choruses, a common-tone shift to B minor occurs at 2:40. This is followed by a brief transitory passage at 2:57, which sets up the final key change up to C# minor at 3:13.
“One of the most acclaimed R&B artists since 2016, the year her first EP found a rapt audience, H.E.R. has been celebrated for vulnerable yet assured love ballads and sharp protest songs alike,” (AllMusic). “The singer/songwriter maximizes the power of her honeyed vocals as a simultaneously poetic and straightforward lyricist, shifts to convincing MC mode on a dime, and is also a guitarist and producer. H.E.R. (2017), I Used to Know Her (2019), and Back of My Mind (2021), her three full-length recordings, have each featured platinum singles, including ‘Focus,’ ‘Could’ve Been,’ and ‘Damage.’ She has won four Grammys, most notably Song of the Year for ‘I Can’t Breathe’ (2020).”
H.E.R.’s track “Hold Us Together” is from the 2020 film Safety, which follows “the story of Ray-Ray McElrathbey, a freshman football player for Clemson University, who secretly raised his younger brother on campus after his home life became too unsteady,” (IMDB).
The gospel-infused ballad modulates up a half step at 3:27 via a hinge that features only the lead vocal as the accompaniment temporarily falls away. Many thanks to Ziyad for yet another of his many submissions!
Billy Porter is a 1991 graduate of Carnegie Mellon University’s drama program whose Twitter bio covers plenty of ground: Grammy, Emmy, Tony & Drama Desk winning actor, director, singer, dancer, writer, advocate. From IMDB‘s bio: “Billy Porter built a substantial reputation as a theatrical singer in Broadway productions such as Grease and Smokey Joe’s Cafe. He made his initial impact by placing ‘Love Is On The Way’ on the soundtrack to the film First Wives’ Club in 1996 …” He later won a Tony award in 2013 for his portrayal of Lola in Kinky Boots. His breakout TV role was Pray Tell in Pose, which debuted in 2018 and ran for three seasons. In 2021, he returned to his native Pittsburgh to shoot his feature film directorial debut, What If?
NME reports that Porter’s 2021 single “Children” was “co-written with Grammy-winning songwriter MNEK (Dua Lipa, H.E.R.) and Little Mix member Jade Thirwell. Porter said in a press release that ‘Children’ was ‘inspired by [his] life and everything [he’s] gone through to get here,’ saying that he’d always had an ambition to release music like it, but was dissuaded by the state of the industry and its lack of understanding towards what he wanted to express. ‘Music is my first love. I grew up singing in the church. When I first put out commercial music in 1997, the industry was not ready for all this black boy joy! But luckily the world has caught up.'” The tune starts in C minor and shifts to Db minor at 2:49.
“The past year has had its ups and downs. I had the incredible opportunity to do concerts in exciting places like London and Australia, but I also learned how lonely life on the road can be — and how returning home is even lonelier when there’s nobody to return to.
Two years ago when I turned 30, my heart found itself in a place it wasn’t expecting to go. It was, for the first time, ready to start a family. In the song “Nothing More,” sung on What I Wanna Be When I Grow Up by the wonderful Christopher Sieber, I wrote about my yearning to leave more than a song behind as my legacy. I knew there was something major missing from my life, and I knew exactly what it was: a child.
After giving everything I had to a relationship that fell apart only a year later, the question became, How much more of myself did I really have left to give? When the relationship ended despite my best efforts, I felt numb to everything around me and completely exhausted. But more than that, I found that the one constant in my life, writing, was suddenly not happening. It was like I’d been put on pause. I couldn’t find words; I couldn’t hear melody. I felt trapped. Though I had so much to say, I couldn’t find the right words with which to say it. I’d sit at the piano and nothing matched the emotions I felt in that moment. They were just words and notes. Words and notes without any meaning to them.
Here I was at a crossroads; I wanted a family, yet the family that I’d been building with my partner was now nothing more then crumpled pieces of unusable lyrics filling up my floor. I was no longer in control of anything.
To understand me is to understand one important thing — I write about my life and all that comes with it. To say that my music and lyrics define me is an understatement. I put every element of myself into song. All of my secrets, inner turmoil, and celebrations are musicalized. It’s my therapy.
Day after day, I kept sitting down at the piano, hoping that some sort of genius idea would present itself. Then one day I started slowly writing again — When the life you had planned / Slowly slips through your hands / When it feels like you just slept through all the best years of your life / When the heart’s beyond repair / When you wake and no one’s there / When your home consists of only you / Is there anything worth holding on to?
That’s all I was able to write at the time. I couldn’t find other words to describe how completely trapped I felt or how losing the ability to explain it in song made me feel even lonelier.
I needed to take a break — to just step away from the piano and from everything around me. I took a vacation to Italy. No phone. No computer. Traveled for two weeks. Stayed in the nicest hotels. Got fat. Drank wine. Ate more gelato than I care to admit. And just breathed. In a relationship it’s easy to forget yourself. This was my chance to get to know me again.
When I returned I put all my energy into finishing the new album. As minutes turned into months we had 11 songs finished. But my coproducer and arranger of the album, Jesse Vargas, insisted that we add one more. I hadn’t sat at the piano since I returned from Italy, too afraid to find that I may still be in the same place I was before I left.
I sat down. Put my hands on the keys. I took a breath. I wrote. When you’re so far from home / When you’ve lost signs of hope / When you’re searching for salvation / But there’s none that you can find / When the words have disappeared / When the melody’s unclear / When there’s nothing left inside of you, is there anything worth holding on to? I sat for a minute … there was still something left to say. Cause I will still be holding on / To everything worth holding on to.
I finished — six months after I’d started it, but it was finally finished.
Jesse decided that if this song was going to be the one to complete the album, it had to be stripped down. On an album filled with lavish orchestrations and arrangements, he believed that it needed nothing more than its lyrics, its melody, the incomparable voice of Crystal Monee Hall, and a piano.
The day I released the album I sat on my couch, studying the cover. I took out my two previous albums, Dreaming Wide Awake and Keys, and put all three of them on my dining room table. Taking a close look I realized that for now these are my children. And I couldn’t be more proud of them. For the first time in over a year, my heart felt full again.
An hour later I started planning the next birth.”
Performed here by Matt Bloyd and Chrissy Metz, the song begins in C, modulates up to Eb for Metz’s entrance on the second verse at 2:04, and lands in F at 4:05.
“Although French chanteuse Claudine Longet recorded a series of bewitchingly ethereal albums which are much revered by today’s aficionados of smooth, sophisticated ’60s pop, among the general public her career as a performer was ultimately dwarfed by the events of her personal life,” (AllMusic).
Longet’s version of “L’Amour Est Bleu” went to #28 on the US pop charts upon its release in 1968. Written by French composers André Popp and Pierre Cour, it was originally Luxembourg’s entry in the 1967 Eurovision Song Contest. In 1968, French national Paul Mauriat’s instrumental version went to #1 in the US, making it the biggest ever seller of a Eurovision Song Contest song in America, and the first US #1 hit by a French artist.
After a start in B minor, 0:54 brings a transition to B major just before the chorus. The original key returns at 1:17; the pattern continues throughout.
Acoustic trio Nickel Creek‘s first self-released recordings appeared in the 1990s; its platinum-selling eponymous major label debut was in 2000. 2014’s A Dotted Line appeared after a break of nearly a decade. “There’s a fluid confidence that takes (Nickel Creek’s) precocious virtuosity into a musicianship that is as supple as it is kinetic,” (Paste). “…the progressive bluegrass they embraced as teenagers is a mere starting point—integrating the places the trio explored during the seven years since they released a studio project.
(Mandolinist/vocalist) Chris Thile emerges as perhaps the unrepentant romantic. ‘Love of Mine,’ with his voice tenderly tentative, weightlessly caresses what might be (then later might not). The see-saw of emotions is so well-reflected in how the instruments tangle, merge and fall out—paralleling what’s being sung … Not merely a product of maturity, Nickel Creek has grown without losing its palpable joy or wondrous ability to make musicianship as accessible as the engaging way their voices draw listeners to them.”
After a start in F# minor, a brief foray into F minor appears at 0:44 before reverting to the original key at 0:51. The two keys then proceed to quarrel it out to a draw, the intensity of the upward key changes only magnified by the common melody note on either side of the modulation.
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