Elise – Page 11

Tom Petty | Mary Jane’s Last Dance

“Tom Petty wrote dozens of hit songs over the course of his four-decade career as frontman of the Heartbreakers, but not all of them impressed his bandmates. At least not right away,” (Ultimate Classic Rock). “Such was the case with ‘Mary Jane’s Last Dance,’ a song that Petty started one day and didn’t finish. ‘I wrote all but the chorus,’ he recalled for 2005’s Conversations With Tom Petty. ‘I just had the loop going around and around and really had most of the words and everything. And I played the tape for Rick [Rubin] and he liked it a lot and suggested I write a chorus. So I tried to finish it up while I was making [1994’s] Wildflowers, and there were maybe five years between the writing of the verses and the chorus.’

… For those who hastily assumed ‘Mary Jane’ was a reference to marijuana, Petty cleared that up later on. ‘I don’t think I was writing about pot,’ he said in 2005. ‘I think it was just a girl’s name. I can’t imagine that I’d write a song about pot. I don’t think there’s enough there to write about [laughs].’ Though it took years for ‘Mary Jane’s Last Dance’ to take its final form, it clearly paid off. By the time Petty died in 2017, the band had played the song live in concert over 500 times, and it’s remained an important touchstone of their catalog.”

Starting with an intro and verse in an uptuned A minor, the chorus (first heard from 1:09 – 1:31) shifts to A major — somewhat obscured by a prominent minor v chord (E minor).

Patti Labelle | If Only You Knew

“Written by Dexter Wansel, Cynthia Biggs, and Kenneth Gamble, ‘If Only You Knew’ became the Patti Labelle’s first #1 R&B hit as a solo artist,” (Songfacts). “Wansel – who also collaborated with Biggs on the track ‘Shoot Him On Sight’ from LaBelle’s previous album, The Spirit’s In It – didn’t think the mid-tempo ballad was that great, but LaBelle disagreed. ‘She loved it from the very beginning and saw the potential, that there were a lot of lonely people out there who loved other people and didn’t really know how to say it,’ he recalled in The Billboard Book Of Number One R&B Hits. ‘She felt like she could say it for them.’

LaBelle found fame as the leader of the progressive soul trio Labelle, who had a big hit with ‘Lady Marmalade’ in 1974. Following their split a couple years later, she worked hard to build a solo career that earned her critical acclaim, but she struggled to make the charts. After releasing her first four albums with Epic, LaBelle signed with Philadelphia International Records, pinning her hopes for a hit on the label’s founders, Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff. The songwriting and production duo was behind many of the hottest soul singles of the ’70s, including ‘If You Don’t Know Me By Now,’ ‘Love Train,’ and ‘Me and Mrs. Jones.’ Her first album with PIR didn’t yield any hits, but she finally scored on I’m In Love Again (1983). Aside from being her first R&B chart-topper, “If Only You Knew” was her first solo crossover hit, peaking at #46 on the Hot 100.” The track also climbed all the way to #1 on the Cash Box US Black Contemporary Singles chart.

The intro is in E major, but there’s an early shift to C# major when the verse starts at 0:29. The chorus (0:58) returns to E major; the alternating pattern continues throughout.

Propaganda | The Murder of Love

“Alongside house orchestra Art of Noise and … Frankie Goes to Hollywood, the German confection (Propaganda) added a pitch-black seductiveness to Trevor Horn and Paul Morley’s label ZTT,” (BBC). “Their debut album, A Secret Wish … (1985) remains a fascinating addition to the clumsy, clattering canon of 80s electronica. Powered by the vocal mystery of Claudia Brücken, the sweetness of Susanne Freytag and the engine room of Michael Mertens and Ralf Dörper, the group was able to sate the European fantasies of the label. Here, it had its Kraftwerk, its Boney M. and its ABBA.

Employing about every Weimar Republic and Wagnerian reference in the book, ZTT created something as grand and illusory as anything they had put together. The concept was so high, the music they assembled could have been almost incidental were it not so inventive, and at times brilliant.”

“The Murder of Love,” a track from the German band’s album A Secret Wish, begins with an F minor verse (1:24) after an initially percussion-only intro. From 1:58 – 2:14, a chorus alternates between Bb minor and Bb major, the tonality obscured at times by angular tensions in the vocal melody. At 2:15, a brief interlude falls back into F minor with a huge crash, featuring the sole lyric “plead for mercy.” None is forthcoming just yet: the entire cycle starts again with another verse at 2:23. But surprisingly, 3:23 brings a jazz-infused guitar solo, followed by some new keyboard patterns leading into the chorus-based outro — all of them lighter in feel than anything up to that point.

OK Go | Here It Goes Again

“Dancing in a beautiful synchronicity has long been part of OK Go singer Damian Kulash’s life,” (The Guardian). ” … he recalls his formative years in Kulash Alarm System, with big sister (and current choreographer and video director) Trish Sie. ‘I was seven and Trish must have been 11,’ he says, ‘and every morning when we’d wait for the school bus, we’d do this heavily thought-out dance routine outside our house, shouting, KULASH! ALARM! SYSTEM! like Kraftwerky robots.’

2006’s ‘Here It Goes Again’ has been viewed a staggering (68 million) times. ‘We saw that by dropping our instruments in the middle of the show and breaking into dance, it completely broke that fourth wall of expectations in a rock show … I love cultural products where you can see the effort people have put in to make something weird and unlikely.’ … Kulash points out that the ‘one take’ operates in a unique position in the current climate. ‘In the hypermediated world that we live in, we immediately go into ‘suspension of disbelief mode’. Like we see so much impossible shit in commercials, on films, in music. We assume artifice in everything we consume.'”

“Here It Goes Again,” a tune whose popularity is driven by a video that is arguably the band’s best known, was the fifth single from the 2005 album Oh No. The tune is built primarily in C major and C mixolydian, but during the nearly wordless bridge (1:40 – 1:59), there’s a shift to Eb major before a return to the original key. Eb also makes another appearance for the closing chord.

Ross Ainslie | Threads Live

“Ross Ainslie is one of Scotland’s finest traditional musicians and composers, playing pipes, whistles and cittern,” (artist website). “He is renowned for his highly acclaimed solo material, and as a skilled performer and prolific collaborator who performs regularly with bands Treacherous Orchestra, Salsa Celtica, Dougie Maclean, Ali Hutton, Jarlath Henderson, Charlie Mckerron, Tim Edey, Hamish Napier, Brighde Chaimbeul, Duncan Chisholm, India Alba and has performed with Kate Rusby, Blue Rose Code, Zakir Hussain, Trilok Gurtu, Capercaillie, Shooglenifty, Carl Barat, Papon, Karsh Kale, Flook, Breabach, Soumik Datta and Patsy Reid.

Born in Perthshire in 1983, Ross began his career as a member of the Perth and District Pipe Band before joining the Vale of Atholl Pipe Band, where he was mentored by piper Gordon Duncan. Hugely influenced by Gordon’s fearlessly innovative spirit and groundbreaking compositions, Ross began exploring his own abilities as a composer and writing his own tunes; in 2002 he was a finalist in the prestigious BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year competition. Ross has six solo albums to date: Wide Open (2013), Remembering (2015), Sanctuary (2017), Vana (2020), Live in the Gorbals (2022) and Pool (2024).“

“Threads,” from the 2022 album Live in the Gorbals, begins in D minor but shifts to C dorian by the 0:46 mark — followed by several other harmonic shifts, further enhanced with some metric shifts as well.

If I Sing (from “Closer Than Ever”)

“The angst of American middle-age – when many of us question the paths we’ve taken and the ones we’re moving toward – has never been as tuneful as in the (1989) show Closer Than Ever,” (WHYY). “The smart, sophisticated musical revue opened Off-Broadway (35) years ago, when we had yet to know the real power of a pixel and only the birds sent a tweet. But Closer Than Ever is as current today as it was then … It consists of 24 songs – a dozen in each act – that reflect the cycles running through most (and maybe all) of our lives: staying in love or not, parenting, parenting your parents, figuring out what the right thing is and doing it, doing the wrong thing and paying for it.

… We have the power couple trying to figure out who can take the baby for an afternoon in the absence of a nanny, and the divorcees who now date and hate it. (“Churning out the small talk with someone who is all talk.”) One character later sings that “the visions seep in my head of the life I could have led.” Why, sings Deirdre Finnegan, “are patterns haunting every move I make?” … If this appears to come down on the side of dreariness, it doesn’t … these ultimately come across as songs about connection and new experiences. The music is by David Shire (Baby, the film Saturday Night Fever) and Richard Maltby Jr. (Baby, Ain’t Misbehavin’, Miss Saigon).”

Beginning in F# minor, “If I Sing” transitions to A major at 1:04, among other harmonic shifts. This tribute to familial love, shared tradition, and humbleness in the face of the passage of time is — ultimately — about connection.

Pet Shop Boys | In Suburbia

Reviewing a 2022 Pet Shop Boys concert, The Guardian described the distinctive culture surrounding the band: “Judging from the demographic here, the audience stretches from 18-year-old girls to middle aged men in suits, hen parties to arty intellectuals. Their vast constituency reflects the electro-pop pair’s status as British pop’s biggest-selling duo, and a musical reach that stretches from Italian house to Tchaikovsky samples.

… Their songs are like miniature kitchen sink dramas – the couple struggling with fidelity in ‘It’s Hard,’ the painful reminders of a break-up in ‘Losing My Mind,’ or the power imbalances in ‘Rent.’ Tennant, unfeasibly now 67, brings delicate thespian touches – a shrug of the shoulder or wagging finger (in ‘It’s a Sin’) – and is one of our most unmistakable vocalists, his inimitable tones somehow capable of expressing excitement and yearning at the same time.”

Tennant viewed the 1986 track “In Suburbia” as a pivotal moment for the UK band (Classic Pop): “I thought Pet Shop Boys were very likely going to be one-hit wonders… We were on a classic trajectory. Our first single: No. 1 everywhere around the world. Next single: No. 19 in the UK. Now, the logical trajectory is that the next record goes to No. 29, the one after doesn’t make the Top 50, and then you’re dropped … “ The intro and choruses are in C major; the verses (first heard between 1:31 – 2:03) are in C minor.

Many thanks to one of our veterans, mod-spotter Rob P., for this wonderful submission!

Todd Rundgren | Someday

“Fifty (plus) years into a career that includes more than twenty solo studio albums, another ten with the band Utopia, plus production credits on albums by the Grand Funk Railroad, The Tubes, New York Dolls, Psychedelic Furs, and Meatloaf’s mega-selling multiplatinum Bat Out of Hell, among others, plus a tour with a post-Ocasek Cars, and currently touring with Adrian Belew performing an all-star tribute to the music of David Bowie, Todd Rundgren can pretty much do whatever he wants. And usually he does,” (TheFireNote). “When finally inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (in 2021) largely at the behest of his long-suffering fans, Rundgren came close to pulling a Sex Pistols-like rejection, ignoring the auspicious proceedings, leaving the producer of the online version of the Award show to pull an excerpt from a graduation speech where he offered the standard disclaimer, ‘if nominated I will not run, if elected I will not serve.’

So, here on his 24^th album under his own name (Space Force, 2022), Rundgren takes the direction of his 2017 duets album, White Knight, to the next level. On that record, Rundgren wrote most all of the music with collaborators in mind, and then invited them to sing and play with him on the tracks. It worked well much of the time, especially on the single ‘Tin Foil Hat,’ written in the style of Steely Dan with guest Donald Fagen. Upping the ante for Space Force, Rundgren approached a variety of artists, some he’d worked with previously and others he’d hoped to work with, and asked them to contribute a piece of unfinished music or recording that they’d laid aside for one reason or another, offering to complete it and bring the duet to completion. The result is stylistically diverse, but with Todd, who described his role as “curator and producer” as well as performer, the album’s 12 tracks hang together fairly well, often pointing to different periods and styles in Rundgren’s long and varied musical explorations.”

“Someday,” a pop-centric collaboration between Rundgren and Australian musician Davey Lane, features quite a few metric hiccups to go along with its key changes. Starting in F major, the tune shifts to G major for its first chorus at 0:49 before returning to the original key for a short interlude and another verse at 1:08. More changes follow from there.

Debbie Dean | Itsy Bity Pity Love

“Debbie Dean, aka Reba Jeanette Smith, aka ‘Penny’ from Penny & The Ekos,” released “Itsy Bity Pity Love” in 1961 (Motown Junkies). “Motown had hoped to turn ‘Debbie’ – who differed from her labelmates in two ways seen as important at the time: by being in her early thirties, and by being white – into a major crossover star, but it never quite happened for her.

Ironically, the same month ‘Itsy Bity Pity Love’ came out, Motown also released their first massive commercial breakthrough, the Marvelettes’ unstoppable crossover hit ‘Please Mr. Postman,’ which teenage audiences both black and white couldn’t get enough of … Debbie gives it her all, giving a strong and charming performance, her white Southern accent (she was originally from Kentucky, and it really shows here) lending appropriate color to the song’s C&W stylings … but she’s simply not given enough to do.

The Country/pop tune moseys through several verses and choruses until an upward half-step shift at 2:00.

Mel + Tim | Starting All Over Again

“Cousins Melvin Hardin and Tim McPherson were from Mississippi, but they eventually moved to Chicago, where they were discovered by Gene Chandler,” (Popdose). “He … co-produced the smash hit ‘Backfield in Motion’ for them. Stax Records, as they often did, sent (Mel + Tim) to Muscle Shoals to record with the Swampers, two of whom, Barry Beckett and Roger Hawkins, produced the next Mel + Tim hit. ‘Starting All Over Again’ was written by Phillip Mitchell and released on Stax in 1972. The record, with its production modeled on the Chi-Lites hit ‘Have You Seen Her’ (including the use of the electric sitar), was a Top 20 hit on the Pop chart and reached #4 on the R&B chart. It remained on the charts for 20 weeks, and became Mel & Tim’s second million-seller.

It’s hard to know why some talented artists have long lasting careers while others fade away. Mel + Tim performed at the fabled Wattstax concert in 1972, but even that highly visible appearance didn’t help them find any real chart success with their subsequent releases. ‘I May Not Be What You Want’ (1973), ‘That’s the Way I Want to Live My Life’ (1974), and ‘Forever and a Day’ (1974) all found a place in the Top 100 on the R&B chart, but unlike Mel + Tim’s earlier hits, did not have much in the way of crossover success … ” In 1991, a nearly note-for-note cover of ‘Starting All Over Again’ by Daryl Hall and John Oates “became a Top 10 hit on the Adult Contemporary chart.”

At 2:41, an unprepared half-step key change hits during an instrumental section leading into the extended outro.