The Who, already very well-established in 1973, indulged in an ambitious adventure: the rock opera Quadrophenia. The soundtrack spanned a full double album. AllMusic reports that the plot was “built around the story of a young mod’s struggle to come of age in the mid-’60s…re-examining the roots of (the band’s) own birth in mod culture. In the end, there may have been too much weight, as Pete Townshend tried to combine the story of a mixed-up mod named Jimmy with the examination of a four-way split personality (hence the title), in turn meant to reflect the four conflicting personas at work within the Who itself.”
“Joker James” begins in D major, loses a bit of steam as it transitions to the bridge at 1:46, and then returns with renewed energy as it modulates to E major at 2:02.
Many thanks to MotD fan Aaron for submitting this tune!
Category: Elise
Utopia | Only Human
An unapologetic ballad on Swing to the Right (1982), an album generally driven by uptempo tunes, Utopia‘s “Only Human” covers ground familiar to fans of Todd Rundgren, the band’s founder, primary frontman, co-writer, and guitarist. AllMusic.com reviewed the album as “doggedly pursu(ing) a weird fusion of new wave pop, arena rock, and soul, all spiked with social commentary” — perhaps not surprising, as the lead vocal and composition duties were distributed among the rock quartet.
The lyrics touch on existential challenges which confront us all, at one time or another. But there is also a typically Rundgren-esque affection for humanity overarching the melancholy. In the end, “Love Is the Answer” and mutual understanding is the end goal: never guaranteed, but therefore prized all the more.
After an intro and verses in B minor, the arrival of the chorus flips over into the relative major (D major) at 2:17; the pattern continues throughout. Utopia’s trademark close four-part harmonies overlay a harmonic complexity typical of the quartet.
Flight of the Conchords | I Told You I Was Freaky
AllMusic describes Flight of the Conchords as “New Zealand’s self-proclaimed ‘fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo a cappella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo,’ (who) became international stars in the 2000s thanks to a successful television series that fictionalized their exploits. Formed by actors, comedians, and musicians Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement, FotC were the rare comedy band whose music was often as celebrated as their gags. Their songs fused witty lyrics with music that often parodied various artists and genres.”
The title track to the 2009 album I Told You I Was Freaky strays a long distance from the duo’s early days of acoustic self-accompaniment: an electronics-driven absurdist funk romp which lands somewhere near the stylistic confluence of Prince, Cameo, and George Clinton. Starting in G major for the intro, the verse transitions to a static G7 chord with a flexible “blue note” third degree at 0:18; at 0:53, the chorus transitions to Ab minor, then back to G7 at 1:11 for the next verse. At 2:05, the percussion drops out to bring us a hushed bridge in A major; 2:34 returns to G7 for a rap outro.
The shorter version included in the TV show lacks the rap outro, but gives an idea of the series’ fearlessly eccentric visual style.
My House (from “Matilda”)
After breaking through at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Australian comedian/composer Tim Minchin first made a name for himself as an edgy self-accompanying music satirist/social commentator. His piano style, ranging from raucous to refined, made him at home self-accompanying solo or playing out in front of symphony orchestras in venues such as the Royal Albert Hall and the Sydney Opera House. Describing himself as a “hack pianist,” he was quoted by Interview One as saying “I’m a good musician for a comedian and I’m a good comedian for a musician, but if I had to do any of them in isolation, I dunno.”
In more recent years, he’s branched out into acting (including the TV series Californication; the TV series Upright, which he also wrote; and stage roles as Mozart in Amadeus and Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar, among many others). More recently, Minchin has composed music and book for the musical Matilda, based on the 1988 Roald Dahl book of the same title. The show had successful runs on Broadway and the West End as well as tours of the US, UK, Ireland, New Zealand, and Australia, winning myriad awards in the process.
Minchin is not generally known for his use of modulation, instead relying on his gifts for wide-ranging melody and evocative lyrics. But he throws a gorgeous key change into Matilda’s “My House” at 2:52 (the music starts at the 0:30 mark).
The Lawrence Welk Show | One Toke Over the Line
San Francisco-based folk duo Brewer + Shipley scored a top 10 hit in 1971 with “One Toke Over the Line.” Their website details that “while the record buying public was casting its vote of approval by buying the single, the (soon to be disgraced) Vice President of the United States, Spiro Agnew, labeled (us) as subversives, and then strong-armed the FCC to ban ‘One Toke’ from the airwaves just as it was peaking on the charts.” The band was even added to Richard Nixon’s notorious Enemies List!
Songfacts.com reports that “some radio stations refused to play this song because of the drug references, but not everyone got this meaning. In 1971 the song was performed on the Lawrence Welk Show by the wholesome-looking couple Gail Farrell and Dick Dale, who clearly had NO clue what a toke was. Welk, at the conclusion of the performance of the song, remarked, without any hint of humor, ‘there you’ve heard a modern spiritual by Gail and Dale.'”
The original tune has no modulation, but the Welk crew’s cover, which broke the earnestness meter from its first few bars, added a half-step upward key change at 1:36. The AV Club adds that “Welk’s big band had been carefully pulled together over his years touring and on the radio, and it was filled with the sorts of nice, Midwestern boys like Welk himself (a North Dakota native). The primary goal of the program was to make sure the music never stopped playing, and that it never got to be too much for the show’s predominantly older audience. And that audience was loyal, sticking with the program as it moved from a locally based Los Angeles show to a national one to one that ran in first-run syndication. Welk had a program on the air somewhere in the country from 1951 to 1982, a staggeringly long run that no other musical variety program can really touch. And he did it all without catering to changing whims or fashions, outside of the occasional badly misjudged musical number, such as …”
…and just for good measure, the original:
Frédéric Chopin | Prelude for Piano #25 in C-sharp minor (Op. 45)
Towards the end of his life, Frédéric Chopin wrote a series of preludes; while there were 26 in all, the piece known as #25 (1841), although published earlier, was actually the final installment of the series to be written.
According the AllMusic, “This last prelude begins with a gentle, melancholy theme, whose mostly ascending accompaniment Chopin deftly works into the gloomy melodic fabric. That is nothing new for him, but here the obsessive and seemingly simple manner of the harmony never becomes tiring, always remains profoundly atmospheric, largely because of the composer’s manipulation of his thematic material, at times allowing sunlight to break in, as when the theme is played for the second time and blossoms into hopeful joy…It is hardly surprising that this masterpiece is one of Chopin’s more popular and widely-played compositions.”
Although we can see from this sheet music-centric video that the key signature never formally shifts, modulations and passing keys-of-the-moment are more the rule than the exception in this piece, calling legions of accidentals into service. AllMusic goes as far as to suggest that “the success of this whole piece rests on the composer’s deft handling of what is essentially threadbare thematic material — there is no middle section here.”
Reign of Kindo | Dust
Reign of Kindo‘s music, according to AllMusic, features “the introspective Brit-pop influences of bands like Coldplay and Keane, but placing the piano front and center and mixing complex jazz harmonies and dissonances with the pop sensibilities of a Ben Folds.” The band has toured with a small central core of musicians, but makes its main impression with the sprawling instrumentation featured in this live recording session. Recording live in the studio, with no overdubs, is a feat on its own — but the band has also added the challenge of capturing the process on video.
The ensemble doesn’t fit neatly into a genre, sitting somewhere between the prog rock, pop, and jazz worlds. The band’s website explains: “It is piano-driven Alt-Jazz…Latin and R&B close by …since the debut EP hit #5 on the Billboard Middle Atlantic Heatseekers chart in 2007, this band has only just begun to emerge from their decade-long journey from rags to… better rags with resumes.”
Starting in C minor, an extended multi-key middle section runs from 1:40 through 3:19. At 3:19, there’s a clear return to C minor.
Niamh Kavanagh | In Your Eyes (Eurovision 1993)
The 65th annual Eurovision Song Contest was to have been held this spring in Rotterdam. Unfortunately, like so many other live performance events, the contest was cancelled due to the worldwide COVID-19 crisis — an unprecedented move in the history of the competition. Fortunately, most of the nations originally slated to send a representative to the competition have already confirmed that they will return in 2021.
1993’s winning song, “In Your Eyes,” was performed by vocalist Niamh Kavanagh, a Dublin native. The tune became the best-selling 1993 single in the Republic of Ireland and reached #24 on the UK Singles chart. Kavanagh is still active as a musical artist with her band, The Illegals. In a 2020 interview with the Irish Examiner, when asked about her top choice of unsung hero: “I’m going to say to musicians, not specific ones, but musicians in general…who strive to create music everyday, who won’t necessarily achieve fame or fortune…who work just to create and share something that affects pretty much everyone on the planet. Music is around us all of the time…”
The huge modulation at 2:21 comes quite late, after several edge-of-the-seat opportunities.
Committed | Lift Every Voice
Ending our week with some much-needed uplift: A cappella quintet Committed, according to its site, “solidified their sound while at school at Oakwood University in Huntsville, AL…The group had the amazing opportunity to be featured on the second season of NBC’s hit singing competition The Sing Off and emerged as the season two champions.”
NPR’s Performance Today details the history of today’s feature, also known as the black national anthem: “Poet James Weldon Johnson’s ‘Lift Every Voice’ was written in 1900 for a Lincoln birthday celebration at the segregated Stanton School in Johnson’s native Jacksonville, Florida. The song became immensely popular and was passed on among students throughout the South. About 20 years later, the NAACP adopted it as the ‘Negro National Hymn.'” The tune has seen prominent covers by Melba Moore (backed up by Stephanie Jackson, Freddie Jackson, Anita Baker, Dionne Warwick, Stevie Wonder, Jeffrey Osborne, and Howard Hewett), Bebe and Cece Winans, Take 6, The Clark Sisters, Rene Marie, and Beyonce.
In this 2015 version, Committed starts in Eb major with simple textures; a wordless bridge emerges at 2:25, building in intensity. There’s a whole-step modulation at 2:42 as the verse returns, adding a few piquant re-harmonizations and some spectacularly broad voicings.
Bill Evans | Diane Schuur | Some Other Time
The most prominent image of Leonard Bernstein tends to be his dynamic presence as the conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. But his career also included his extensive composition for Broadway, including West Side Story, Candide, Wonderful Town, and many others. His tune “Some Other Time,” from the 1944 musical On the Town (lyrics by Betty Comden and Adoph Green), subsequently became one of the select few which made the leap from show tune to jazz standard.
One of the most noted instrumental versions of the standard is by pianist Bill Evans. His version includes an intro that approaches the musical equivalent of liturgy, serving as an intro across a broad variety of ballads by other artists. Pitchfork explains that “Evans’ art has endured in part because he has a brilliant combination of formal sophistication and accessibility; critics and his fellow musicians heard the genius in his approach to chords, his lightness of touch…while listeners could put on his records and simply bask in their beauty, how Evans’ continual foregrounding of emotion made the sad songs extra wrenching and the happy ones extra buoyant.”
On the Evans version, the intro and start of the melody are in C major. 1:30 brings the middle 8, which are in Ab major. There’s a return to C major at 2:04, completing the AABA cycle at 2:38 as the solo section begins.
Since the lyric is a very powerful one, we’re also including a vocal version by vocalist and pianist Diane Schuur. Her website details that she learned “‘What a Difference a Day Makes’ while she was still a toddler (and) developed her own rich, resonant vocal style at a very young age…(winning) two Grammy awards and three additional Grammy nominations” via her solo work and collaborations with the Count Basie Orchestra, B.B. King, Ray Charles, and Jose Feliciano.
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